


Source of Light

by EllianaDunla



Series: Wandless [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Spooks | MI-5
Genre: Gen, Sequel to Operation Wandless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-01-04 10:34:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllianaDunla/pseuds/EllianaDunla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A plot to overthrow the Statute of Secrecy forces MI-5 and their magical counterparts to set aside their prejudices and work together. But it is not all that simple, and for some officers this operation is intensely personal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, dear readers! If you’ve read Operation Wandless, welcome back. If you didn’t, the most important thing you have to know that two aspiring Aurors made a career switch three years prior to this story, and are now working with MI-5.  
> Enjoy!

Chapter 1

 

There was nothing at all unusual about the small restaurant in the heart of London. It was lunchtime and therefore it was crowded. The young woman in a crisp business suit was hardly remarkable in the crowds of people making their way through the City. That was just the way she liked it. She had no ambition to stand out in a crowd at all.

But she wished they would just get out of her way, because she was running late and she only had an hour before she needed to be back at work, or her boss would have her hide. And since his temper had been close to explosion for weeks, the woman had no wish to get her ears blistered when she got on his bad side, especially when that was so easily achieved these days.

She pushed the door open and came into the restaurant itself. It was warmer in here than it was outside and she sighed contently. Everything was better than the chilly air that had been plaguing London for the last week.

‘Excuse me,’ she called to a waiter. ‘I wondered if you could help me? I’m supposed to meet a friend here.’

The waiter met that with the cool polite expression that seemed to be his kind’s default setting. ‘Do you have his name?’ If he was trying to convey the message of you’re-the-umpteenth-difficult-customer-I’ve-seen-today, then he was doing a tremendous job of it.

The woman ignored that. ‘Harris,’ she told him. ‘John Harris. My name is Eliza McKenzie. I was supposed to meet him here ten minutes ago, but I was late and now I’m not sure where he is, so I’m hoping…’

The waiter cut her rambling short. It was clear that he didn’t have the patience for it in his current mood. ‘Table twelve,’ he reported. ‘I’ll take you there, Miss…’ He caught sight of her wedding ring and corrected himself. ‘Mrs McKenzie.’

The woman who had introduced herself as Eliza McKenzie shot him a relieved smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said. Unlike most of the customers, she genuinely seemed to mean it.

The waiter brought her to a table where a young man was waiting. He seemed very ill at ease; he gave every impression of sitting on a hedgehog instead of a comfortable chair and, to the other guests of the restaurant, he was looking a little strange. At first glance there was nothing at all wrong with him, but once one started to look at him longer, one couldn’t help but wonder if that was a woman’s shirt he was wearing underneath that jacket of his. And really, his coat was perhaps a bit overdone. But well, one saw all kinds of people on the streets today, so they did not spare him too much thought.

‘John, good to see you!’ Eliza McKenzie exclaimed when she caught sight of him, causing the waiter to inwardly cringe at the volume that caused the people around them to look disapprovingly.

The man seemed to relax somewhat when he in turn recognised her. ‘Eliza, it’s good to see you.’ He met her with an affectionate hug. ‘I’m glad you could make it on such a short notice.’

She smiled. ‘No problem,’ she assured him. ‘But I can’t stay long. My boss will kill me if I’m not back at my desk at one pm.’ She turned to the waiter. ‘Can we order right away?’

The waiter told her that she could, even though he really had other customers he should see to first. That last sentiment he kept to himself though and he left with their orders, wondering why today of all days he would be bothered with so many obnoxious customers.

Having said that though he wouldn’t think there was anything at all strange about them. They were just two friends meeting up for lunch, as so many people did. They hardly stood out, even if the man’s dress sense was a tad bit strange. And there was nothing at all unusual about them when he brought them their meals. They seemed to be discussing the good old days when the man had driven one of his teachers to despair by predicting the questions that teacher was going to ask.

Had he stayed for longer though, he may not have found them that ordinary at all.

‘Poor man,’ the woman commented when the man finished his story. ‘I do feel sorry for him.’

‘You never liked him either,’ the man pointed out as he took an enthusiastic bite of salad. ‘Neither did the rest of the student body.’ He sipped his wine. ‘I heard you got married?’

Given the wedding ring on her finger, that was hardly a difficult deduction. ‘I did,’ she confirmed. ‘Although I’m surprised you heard about it. It was just a small celebration. We didn’t make much of a fuss.’

Her lunch partner laughed humourlessly. ‘Your charming father-in-law made quite a fuss about it at the Ministry,’ he informed her. ‘He would have forbidden it if only he could.’

She grimaced. ‘I bet. Julius told me he was being “difficult,” but I wasn’t aware it was that bad.’ She saw his confused look and added: ‘There’s not a lot of contact between them these days. Trust me, you don’t want to know.’ She swallowed a bite of her own. ‘But enough about me. Why am I here?’

The nervousness that had subsided in the man now made a spectacular return and he glanced over his shoulder as if he were afraid that someone would either listen in or attack him the moment he opened his mouth. ‘Can we talk here? Safely?’

The woman frowned. ‘I think so.’

‘Are you sure?’ he insisted.

He got a shrug in response. ‘There are ways of making sure.’

If the other guests of the restaurant would have looked at them a second later, they might have choked on their food, because the woman retrieved a wooden stick from her handbag and made a few discreet moves with it. Furthermore they would have realised that they could no longer hear what was being discussed at table twelve. But since no one was paying attention to that at all, the act of magic went completely unnoticed.

‘Now, what is going on?’ The tone of voice suddenly was rather business-like. ‘Why are we here, with false names, in a Muggle restaurant, not to mention the fact that you sent me a magical note on my desk this morning. What’s going on?’ There was wariness and a touch of nervousness in her voice now too.

The man stared at his plate. ‘I’d hardly know where to start.’

‘The beginning?’ the woman suggested.

‘There’s a movement in our world,’ he suddenly said. He was still looking at his food instead of her. ‘They call themselves the Source of Light.’

She frowned. ‘I’ve never heard of them.’

‘That’s because it’s a secret movement.’ The man grimaced.

The frown on her face deepened. ‘What are their goals?’ It was clear that she had a lot of questions and was trying to determine which one was the most important.

‘The short version? To overthrow the Statute of Secrecy and take over the Muggle world.’ He sounded utterly miserable.

The witch almost choked on her drink. ‘What?’

That seemed to do the trick of starting off an explanation. ‘It’s clever,’ he said. ‘Really clever. And it’s already started. The idea is that they show magic to as much Muggles as they can without alerting the Ministry, until there are so many that it will be impossible to Obliviate them all. They think that if that happens, the Ministry will have no choice but to let them get away with it. They are hoping that the Ministry might even repeal the Statute of Secrecy of their own volition. And after that, they will try to take over the Muggle government by the Muggle ways. Getting into Parliament and all that. Their reasoning is that Muggles will be so impressed by the superiority of the wizards with their magic, that they will see the wisdom of letting them rule Britain. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always bribes, blackmail and brute force. As a last resort, of course, but still.’

All the colour had drained from his friend’s face. ‘Surely that cannot happen!’ she exclaimed, a little too loud, but none of that really mattered because her own spell prevented others from hearing her outburst. Still, she lowered her voice when she realised her mistake. ‘Surely the Ministry would not allow that to happen? Surely the magical population themselves would not want it?’

The wizard shook his head. ‘You’ve been away for too long. Aren’t you still subscribed to the _Daily Prophet_?’

The witch’s stare was suddenly rather icy. ‘I stopped reading that waste of ink three years ago. I think my boss still reads it though. Why? What does that have to do with this plot?’

By way of a reply he pushed the newspaper at her. ‘Read that.’

She did. _Why the Statute of Secrecy Should Be Abandoned_ , read the headline. She looked up in shock. ‘This has got to be some kind of joke!’

‘If only,’ was the wry answer to that. ‘Read on.’

She did, skimming the article more than reading it. Not that she needed more. The article stated that there were no longer witch hunts in the Muggle worlds and that meant that there was no real danger anymore, which had been the reason for going into hiding in the first place. According to the author this meant that wizards and Muggles should be able to live in one society again, with one government. Already there were good examples of cooperation between the two worlds, like the joined operation of the Auror Department and the Muggle security service MI-5 three years ago. Wasn’t that all the proof they needed that it was possible?

She looked up. ‘This doesn’t sound so radical,’ she pointed out.

‘Well, they’re hardly going to announce their intentions of taking over both wizarding and Muggle Britain in the best-read newspaper in the country, are they?’ He was jumpy now, on edge. ‘Can’t you see what they’re doing? Can’t you see how clever this is? They get the public’s good opinion on side acting like this and no one even realises it’s them or that they even exist.’ He shook his head. ‘And they’re everywhere. I think they even infiltrated the Ministry itself.’

‘Is that why you’ve gone to me instead of Mr Potter?’ she inquired sharply.

‘Where should I have gone if not you?’ he threw back at her. ‘Most of the wizarding world, even if they aren’t members, sympathises with the sentiment. People are tired of hiding and I am not even sure I can blame them. But to dominate Muggles? I don’t think that’s the way. But who’s going to believe me, eh?’ He sounded undeniably bitter.

As a result he found himself on the receiving end of a sympathetic and almost pitying smile. ‘I’m sorry.’ She bit her lip. ‘You’ve got a point of course.’ She shook her head in disgust. ‘Forgive me for asking, but how do you know so much? According to you most of the wizarding world doesn’t even know, so how do you?’

The wizard avoided her eyes when he replied. ‘You know, don’t you?’

‘Merlin’s beard,’ the young witch whispered, which was all the answer that was needed. ‘Lorcan, you didn’t.’ It was a plea for denial.

But if she was hoping she got it, she was sorely disappointed. ‘You know I did.’ All of a sudden he was rather defensive. ‘And you can’t really blame me for it, can you? You would have done the same if they’d have asked you. Aren’t you tired of keeping our world separate from the Muggle one all the time? Aren’t you ever tired of hiding?’

The ice was back in the woman’s eyes, but it was laced with disappointment. ‘Hiding is my job these days,’ she reminded him.

He grimaced. ‘I know. Listen, I am sorry. You know how it is for me these days. I can’t even hold a decent job because of my background and they…’

‘… Promised you the world,’ the witch finished. It was more weariness that ruled her voice now than anything else. ‘Believe me, I understand. But Merlin’s pants, Lorcan, you’re a Ravenclaw. Should you not have known better than to get involved with such a shady organisation?’

The man that was addressed as Lorcan arched an eyebrow at her. ‘This is coming from the mouth of the Ravenclaw witch who abandoned the magical society to work for MI-5, the shadiest organisation in the British Muggle society?’ He shook his head. ‘I suppose that none of us are very wise when it comes to making decisions like that. It’s just… Source of Light makes a valid point.’

The witch bit her lip, which could be taken as a sign that she at least agreed with that, even if she disagreed with all the rest. ‘But this is not the way,’ she said eventually. ‘Dominating the Muggle world with magic? It sounds like Lord Voldemort all over again.’

Lorcan took that for the barely concealed accusation it was. ‘Do you really think I would have accepted if I had known that? Surely you know me better than that!’ he protested. ‘I came straight to you the moment I realised what their real agenda was.’

She gave a curt nod of acknowledgement. ‘I know. Do you at least have names?’

‘Two only,’ Lorcan replied. ‘John Woods, the _Daily Prophet_ reporter. You know him?’

Her nose wrinkled in disgust. ‘Heard of him. They say he’s Rita Skeeter’s successor in all but name, with his unsavoury taste for dragging important names through the mud.’ She rolled her eyes at the wizard opposite her when he shot her an incredulous look. ‘I’m not completely out of the loop, you know. He recruited you?’

Lorcan looked utterly ashamed.

‘And the other?’ she insisted. ‘Who’s the other?’

The other took a deep breath. ‘Marcus Burke.’

She all but choked on her drink. ‘Are you certain?’

‘As certain as I can be,’ he confirmed. ‘Unless someone stole one of his hairs and drank Polyjuice Potion to steal his appearance, it was him. I’ve seen enough of him to know.’

The woman wrung her hands in clear distress. She bit her lip again, but eventually she took a deep breath to calm herself. ‘I need to go to my boss with this,’ she said. ‘I can’t keep this to myself and I’m not authorised to make decisions this important on my own.’ She smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry to ask, but can you stay with them for a little longer? At the moment you’re our only way inside Source of Light. We may need you.’

Lorcan looked as if he had already expected a request like that. ‘I suppose I could.’ The lack of enthusiasm would have been audible even to a deaf man.

His lunch partner however pretended she had not noticed it. ‘I’ll deal with this right away,’ she announced. ‘I’ll contact you when I know more.’ She shoved her chair back and, after a last smile in his direction ended the _Muffliato_. ‘It was good to see you again, John. We really ought to do this more often.’

Eliza McKenzie offered another smile to the nearest waiter and exited the restaurant at a brisk pace. If the number of people on the street would have allowed it and her boss wouldn’t have torn into her for attraction attention in public, she would have run the distance to the nearest alley.

As it was, Eliza walked calmly, pretending to be just as interested in her mobile phone as the people she was surrounded by. The moment however she stepped foot inside the abandoned and dark alley, Amy Apparated straight back to Thames House.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t promise any regular updates for this story, but I’m aiming for at least updating once every two weeks, most likely on Thursdays.  
> Source of Light is placed in the timeline of Spooks, series 8, between 8x02 and 8x03, in case any of you were wondering.  
> Next time: Amy tells the happy news to her colleagues. Please review? It would mean a lot.


	2. Ros Myers

It was one of those days that she should have stayed in bed, Ros Myers pondered as she sent a scowl that was known to make terrorist suspects wet themselves with fear at the document she was currently reading. She had never been a very sociable person, but this morning was even below her already low standards, and she knew it.

The worst was that she had not even anyone to blame for the fiasco. The fault was all hers. Of course it didn’t help that the one she met was the woman she had helped to force into exile a few years previous. It was Ruth’s first official day back in Thames House, but working together with her might be hard, very hard. Of course Ruth had been back on the Grid once before, but that had been in the middle of an operation and at least then she’d had the excuse of an operation for not being overly sociable. That was an excuse she hadn’t had today.

What did one say to the woman one had all but driven into exile herself? She had never even liked Ruth, not even before the whole Cotterdam affair, and she had been secretly relieved when Ruth was gone and she got to work with Connie James after a while. Now Ros wondered what it said about her that she rather had worked with a traitor than an honest woman.

This morning she had settled for a clipped ‘Morning,’ the kind of greeting that was reserved for most of her colleagues. Ruth was technically speaking her colleague now.

She’d thought she’d gotten away with it. That was, until Ruth wanted to “talk about it.” To clear the air, she said. Ros had stared her down with her most iciest stare, told the analyst that she was busy and that Ruth herself surely had a lot to do before she was settled in again – which, in hindsight, must have come across as her having another jab at Ruth’s forced exile – and that talking was not her top priority right now, after which she had stalked off.

At least, that must have been what it looked like to someone who was not Ros Myers. Her reputation of being an officially qualified sociopath usually preceded her into the room, so no one actually thought it strange that she acted in such a way. They would have been surprised to find that she had been almost crippled inside, overcome by panic at being confronted in such a way. And to others it may have looked like she was walking away after having given someone a scathing talking to, but to her it had felt like she fled the scene.

‘Coffee, boss?’ When Ros looked up to see who had spoken, she almost head-butted the extended coffee mug, that was currently held out to her by Lucas North, the Senior Case Officer on her team.

Ros glared at him. ‘What part of _I do not want to be disturbed_ did you not understand?’ she demanded.

If she was hoping he would do a step or two back, like Ruth Evershed had done, she was disappointed. Lucas had endured eight solid years of torture at the hands of the FSB, and had therefore seen a lot worse than Ros on a bad day. His experience with FSB interrogators seemed to have granted him permanent immunity from Ros’s most foul glares and her harsh words. She reluctantly admired him for that, but it didn’t mean that she liked it. On the other hand, it was a small price to pay for a colleague who did his work so well. He wasn’t Adam – he didn’t have the same temper for one – but he was one of the best officers she’d ever worked with and he had a knack for knowing when she was in need of coffee before she knew it herself.

‘You look like you need it,’ Lucas said, putting the mug on her desk when she didn’t seem to be taking it from him. ‘A sandwich probably wouldn’t go amiss either.’ The smile that accompanied his words was only just _this_ side of cheeky.

Ros threw in a glare for good measure, but it didn’t have any more effect than it had before. At least she was lucky enough that Lucas had not been here when the whole disaster had taken place. He didn’t know what had driven Ruth into exile and she was perfectly fine with keeping it that way. Not that there was much chance of that; Lucas was a spy like her and that meant that he would work it out eventually. Not yet, though.

Lucas merely looked around the Grid. ‘Where are our magical additions?’ he asked.

‘Julius is liaising with Six and Amy should be at her desk,’ she replied, sipping her coffee gratefully. Lucas’s assessment of the situation had been right; she was in need of a caffeine fix.

It was still strange that Lucas had known about the wizarding world before she did. But then, he had been on the team during the nineties, during the Second Wizarding War, before he had been imprisoned in Russia. The way she’d heard Harry talk, he had even been actively involved in some of the action. He’d never taken on a Death Eater, but he had confirmed to smuggling Muggle-borns through the disused service tunnels under London, the very ones they’d used only recently to outrun the FSB and stop a nuclear device from wiping the city from the face of the earth.

The pods whooshed, letting a slightly panicked Amy onto the Grid. As far as Ros was aware, she hadn’t even left, and she certainly had not been aware of her going off on her own – the witch was a desk spook, not a field officer after all – until Lucas had alerted her to it.

The look on the junior analyst’s face was only too familiar though. It was the kind that every spy had when an asset had given them news they didn’t want to hear. Only Amy didn’t have assets to meet, not as far as Ros was aware.

She called after the young woman, but Amy either didn’t hear her or she ignored her. Instead she made a beeline for Harry’s office, which she entered, in true Section D style, without knocking. The only one startled by her exclamation was the new technician, Tariq Masood, who, to her annoyance, still hadn’t lost the far too casual T-shirt, as she had instructed him to do. She expected she had frightened the young man with stares that left Lucas completely unaffected. He liked Lucas though, showing off gadgets and the like. Everyone seemed to like Lucas, whereas they usually gave her only a wide berth instead of a friendly smile. _You reap what you sow, Myers._

‘What’s that about?’ Lucas wondered. In the time she had been trying to work out what the hell the new Mrs Burke was up to, he had taken the liberty of perching himself on her desk.

‘I’m not magical, I can’t tell.’ Her temper was short and she really wasn’t in the mood to play the guessing game. If it was important, Harry would call a meeting soon enough. ‘Don’t you have reports to finish or something?’

‘It’s lunch break,’ he pointed out. ‘Most of us use that the way it’s meant to.’

Ros glanced at her watch. ‘It was lunch break,’ she corrected. ‘Until five minutes ago.’

‘Got it, boss.’ This time the smile was the wrong side of cheeky. It was the kind that usually had every female swooning at his feet, but that Ros had complete immunity from. It was only fair; he wasn’t affected by her laser looks.

Amy spent a lot of time in Harry’s office, Ros observed, and whatever it was that she was telling him, it didn’t improve Sir Harry’s mood. The office was sound-proof, but Harry had forgotten to blind the windows, making sure Ros had a good view of the proceedings. Whatever it was that the magical analyst had ferreted out, it had their boss in a right foul mood.

She forced herself not to feel annoyed at being kept out of the loop and concentrated on her own job of digging through a stack of reports that seemed to refuse to shrink, to her endless annoyance. Julius came in and added a few to the pile, scanning the Grid for sight of his wife. ‘Where’s Amy?’ he asked.

‘Brightening Harry’s mood,’ Ros replied sarcastically.

Julius’s head was still in the process of turning around to confirm this with his own eyes, when an almost deafening roar of Harry’s commanded them all to gather in the meeting room ‘right this instant!’ Ros herself was just in time to see the Section Head marching over the Grid, a breathless Amy in his wake; she had to all but run to keep up with him. That was the best course of action; Harry Pearce in a mood like that was best not kept waiting.

This opinion was clearly shared by Ruth and Tariq, with the latter nearly throwing himself out of his chair and tripping over his feet in his haste to get into the meeting room. According to Lucas he was fond of his job and wanted to keep it, but that bloody T-shirt was so far not improving his career prospects. Jo was on her way as well, whereas Julius merely frowned and shrugged, before he did the same. Lucas was the only one who didn’t give the impression of haste.

‘You’re not taking a stroll in the park on a sunny afternoon, Lucas,’ she snapped irritably at him.

‘Do we ever have sunny afternoons in England?’ he wondered. ‘With the hours we’re working, I can never tell.’

Ros didn’t deem this worthy of a verbal reply and merely rolled her eyes at him. Anyway, if he wanted to be on the receiving end of one of Harry’s best tongue-lashings, that was his problem, not hers. Her mind was far more occupied with the panic she had seen on Amy’s face on arrival and the naked fury on Harry’s when he exited his office. Lucas may be right about Harry selecting his frown with his tie in the morning, but this frown was definitely selected later than the tie and Amy’s report had something to do with it. It was one of those frowns that indicated that his blood pressure was in the danger zone. As far as Ros was aware, only terrorist attacks, the CIA and occasionally the Home Secretary had that effect on her boss.

Harry was tapping a pen impatiently against the table top when Lucas and she took their places at the table. Amy was the one who remained standing. She had come quite a long way since she had first stepped foot on the Grid – she was a lot more confident to begin with – but half an hour in Harry’s office had reverted her into the young recruit wringing her hands. Not a good sign.

‘Amy,’ Harry said. ‘If you please.’

The witch nodded and took a deep breath. ‘This morning there was a note on my desk,’ she began. ‘It came from an old school friend of mine, who knows I’m working with MI-5 these days. He requested to meet me for lunch under false names.’ She took a deep breath. ‘He told me there’s a secret movement in the magical society, called Source of Light.’ Her breathing was shallow and she swallowed.

‘I take it its aim is not to make sure the Ministry of Magic is properly illuminated,’ Ros remarked dryly.

Amy shook her head. ‘It’s not,’ she agreed. ‘Its goal is to repeal the Statute of Secrecy.’

Ros didn’t know why she was surprised this elicited a reaction from Ruth, but she was. ‘I’ve heard of this!’

‘Little birds told you that while you were in Cyprus, did they?’ she inquired.

Harry’s stern look told her she was going too hard on Ruth, but both women ignored him. ‘I subscribed to the magical newspaper. I may have tricked their Ministry into thinking I was a Squib to do it.’ She smiled, almost apologetically. ‘But it’s a popular sentiment in wizarding society worldwide. There are no more witch hunts and people are tired of hiding. It might even be a good idea.’

Amy jumped on it. ‘Not the way Source of Light is planning,’ she said dismissively. ‘Their plan is to make sure as many Muggles see them doing magic as possible, so that their number is too great for the Ministry to Obliviate them. That way they hope to force the Ministry’s hand. Their reasoning is that they will have to come out of hiding if only enough people know.’

‘And little videos of magic are online faster than you can say “tweet” these days,’ Lucas observed. ‘If they play it clever, they could reach millions in a matter of hours. Bloody internet.’ It ended in an angry mutter.

‘Exactly,’ Amy said.

Julius frowned. ‘I agree with Ruth. Source of Light may go about it the wrong way, but there is some sense in the idea itself, isn’t there? It would be easier on both societies if the Statute was repealed. Muggles wouldn’t need to be Obliviated and wizards wouldn’t need to hide anymore. Everyone benefits.’

This earned him another stare from Harry. ‘It is not your job to bring change to the country,’ he reminded the wizard.

‘It’s not as if the government is doing a very good job of it,’ Julius drawled. He may be a bit more humble than he had been these days, but that arrogant streak was still there. In the three years he had been here, his opinion of the non-magical government hadn’t improved either. Not that Ros could blame him for that.

‘That is not what this about!’ Amy interrupted, which was possibly a good thing; Harry’s facial expression indicated an approaching hurricane. She sounded frustrated. ‘Repealing the Statute is only the start of it all. They need it repealed for their ultimate goal to be successful.’

Ros frowned. ‘Which is?’

‘To take over the Muggle government and establish magical supremacy all over Britain.’

That particular revelation made almost every jaw in the meeting room drop. Ros could only hold on to hers at the last possible moment. She was in no way unfamiliar with loonies trying to overthrow government and society as she knew it – she had been part of such an attempt once herself – and that it were the magical loonies who sometimes attempted the same thing was old news to her; the Death Eaters had been trying to do the same thing during Operation Wandless. It was however most unwelcome news and it came completely out of the blue. And Ros didn’t like surprises any more than she liked the CIA, which was to say: not at all.

Amy used the opportunity to keep going uninterrupted. ‘They’d try to use Muggle ways at first, trying to get into Parliament and the like, but if that doesn’t work…’

‘They’d resort to more violent means?’ Jo supplied, looking rather horrified.

Amy nodded miserably. ‘Almost certainly so. My friend was convinced of it, at least, and he isn’t likely to exaggerate.’

‘Does this friend of yours have a name?’ Ros inquired sharply. ‘And how exactly did he get his hands on sensitive information like that? He been visited by little birds as well?’

‘His name is Lorcan Rowle,’ Amy said, sounding a bit more comfortable now, despite the fact that she had just been snapped at. ‘He’s a security guard in the Ministry of Magic.’ Ros’s memory conjured up the image of a scrawny youth just out of his teens, who had been delaying her a lot the one time she had stepped foot in the place, three years previous. He hadn’t liked her much, but Ros couldn’t care; the feeling was entirely mutual. ‘One of the members of Source of Light recruited him. Apparently he only told Lorcan about the intentions to overthrow the Statute. When he found out there was a lot more to it than that, he came running straight to us.’

It was the same old story as always then, Ros observed. She wouldn’t deny that such persons were usually the most valuable assets, but she also knew that people who got scared once, easily got scared again and then completely went to pieces when things got risky. The wizard she had met briefly then didn’t look like a very brave fellow, but if he had access to Source of Light, then he wasn’t out of this just yet. She had little consideration for people who went and got themselves involved in something criminal, and then tried to get out when they “realised they had made a mistake.”

And she had national security to think of. ‘Well, hopefully he hasn’t bleated his resignation to the world just yet,’ she remarked. ‘Can you contact him and tell him he is in the employment of the Service as of now?’

‘I already told him that.’ This was a surprise. Amy was usually rather soft-hearted, and objected to using people like this on a regular basis. She thought it too harsh, too unfeeling, so when it was an old friend of hers that was on the receiving end of the Service’s treatment, she was bound to protest. Now she presented a more grown-up attitude than Ros had given her credit for. ‘But he expected that anyway.’ She bit her lip. ‘I really don’t think he meant for any of this to actually happen.’

‘Yeah, I’m sure Bin Laden didn’t mean for those planes to happen either,’ she commented sarcastically. ‘Do we have names?’ she demanded. ‘Anyone we can suspect of being involved with Source of Light at all?’

She didn’t get the answer she was hoping for. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’ That was Lucas. ‘They have a Ministry, Aurors, to deal with this sort of stuff. Why come to us?’

Inwardly Ros cursed herself for a fool. That was exactly the kind of question she should have been asking, but also the only one she hadn’t asked. She really wasn’t on top of her game today and if there was anything she disliked the feeling of, it was that.

Amy had her answer ready. ‘Because he believes the Ministry has been infiltrated, as it was during the last war. The thing is, he knows it’s big, but he doesn’t know how big. All we have are the names of man who recruited him and someone he suspects of being a bit higher in the whole organisation.’ Seeing that her boss was thoroughly fed up with her withholding the information that she wanted, she continued: ‘Right… ehm… The man who recruited Lorcan is called John Woods, forty-two years old, lives in London and…’

‘Works as a reporter for the _Daily Prophet_.’ To Ros’s surprise it was Harry who finished the sentence. In hindsight it was not such a surprise; Harry must be the only person in Thames House who even still read that bloody newspaper. ‘He has been writing some charming pieces on why the Statute of Secrecy should be abandoned forthwith.’ Going by the way he spoke the word _charming_ , Ros could tell he wasn’t charmed in the slightest.

‘He’s unofficially known as Rita Skeeter’s successor,’ Amy admitted, which earned her a few faces wrinkling in disgust. ‘We don’t know how deeply involved he is. He could just be the one writing the propaganda.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It’s the other name that’s the probably big fish in the pond.’ For some reason she shot an almost apologetic look at Julius, something that Ros didn’t quite get.

‘Would you care to elaborate before Christmas, or are you going to spell out the name in magical letters floating over Whitehall?’ she snapped. She really had no patience for dawdling. Something about this made her skin crawl. She had never liked wizard terrorists, probably because she couldn’t really fight them on an equal basis, and them wanting to overthrow British society was somewhat disturbing, especially since they would probably use magic to do it.

A moment later Amy’s awkwardness became a lot more logical though. ‘His name is Marcus Burke.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Julius processes the news. That next time will be in January, though, since I am taking a short holiday from writing/updating for the Christmas holidays. The full message is on my profile. Don’t worry, I’ll be back.  
> Please review?


	3. Julius Burke

‘His name is Marcus Burke.’ The words rang in his ears, but they refused to make any sense to Julius for a few more seconds. The name just kept echoing in his mind. Marcus Burke. He knew who that was. Of course he knew who that was. Not that he was much in touch with the man these days, mind, but he believed that he could be relied upon to remember the name of his own father.

And so could his colleagues. Maybe they didn’t know that this was his father they were talking about yet, but the surname was a dead giveaway that this was a relative of his. The magical Burkes weren’t all that big a family anymore. Like so many other pure-blood families, they would probably die out in the next century. There were only so many Burkes to choose from.

The one thing that stood out in the silence, was Amy’s face. She was biting her lip again, something she tended to do whenever she was nervous or apologetic. She had been trying to speak to him before the meeting, but Julius had pointed out that Harry Pearce was a man best not kept waiting. They should talk later. It was only now that he realised that she may have been trying to warn him. It was him who had chosen not to listen.

He was paying the price for that now. Amy wouldn’t want to publically humiliate him, or rub salt in still open wounds, and Merlin knew she had tried to put it off as long as she could. But both Harry and Ros had looked like they were prepared to rip out her throat if she didn’t answer the question right this very minute.

But it didn’t make sense either. His father hated Muggles, true, but he had never given off signs that he wanted to dominate them like Lord Voldemort had wanted to do. He didn’t want anything to do with them. If the choice was up to him, he would board the doors and windows and pretend there were no Muggles and Muggle-borns. That was how he would deal with it. He wouldn’t get involved with an organisation that actively strived to overthrow the Muggle society.

Or would he? Julius had to admit that he didn’t know his father all that well anymore. It had started when he had attended Hogwarts, since he was seldom home. After Hogwarts, when he had started Auror training, it had been easier to get a place of his own in London, but he still had made frequent visits. Everything had seemed normal enough. It was only after he had taken that drastic step to work with MI-5 that all hell had broken loose. Since then, there hadn’t been much contact at all.

The plausibility of the idea was starting to take root in his mind and Julius didn’t want it to. He shoved his chair back and stood, toppling the piece of furniture in the process. He felt like a monkey that was ogled at in a zoo, and he couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want pity, or sympathy, or accusing looks, or…

He didn’t know what he wanted. All he knew was that he wanted to get away from the stares as quickly as he possibly could. It was painful, and he didn’t want to feel like the poor sod with the unreliable father. Even more so, he didn’t want to be seen as unreliable himself, as compromised because of the things they suspected his father to be doing. Because, against all odds, was there not a possibility that Lorcan had gotten it wrong, that it was someone who only looked like his father, or who had stolen his appearance with Polyjuice Potion? Unlike in the Muggle world, wizards had many ways to change their appearance and still look completely normal. And they only had Lorcan’s word for it. It was not as if the Ravenclaw had really been all that reliable. Far too nonchalant, in Julius’s opinion, far too uncaring about the details…

‘Julius?’

Amy’s voice was the thing that snapped him out of his thoughts. She was the very image of apologetic, and just this once, Julius couldn’t bear it. He didn’t blame her for not telling him before the meeting, but he found that part of him blamed her for believing right away that his father really was doing what Lorcan said. And that was something he could not accept, not without irrefutable evidence. Family was family after all.

‘Do you think he’s a dangerous magical terrorist as well?’ he drawled, trying to sound bored with it all. Never had it been more of a mask than it was now. ‘It won’t matter; they’re all thinking it. Maybe you should move out of the flat for a while, until they’ve established that I don’t want to become the next Muggle Prime Minister.’ He was cursing his own carelessness in admitting that he wouldn’t mind seeing the Stature of Secrecy flushed down the toilet. Only Merlin knew what they’d make of that.

‘No one’s thinking that!’ Amy exclaimed. ‘We all know what side you’re on. You proved that three years ago.’

There was a short silence when they both remembered just how he had been forced to prove his loyalty before people believed him. It was not the kind of thing he wanted to remember, and therefore the very thing he found himself incapable of forgetting. There were nights that he still woke up screaming, bathing in his own sweat, heart beating so loud and rapid that it was bound to be unhealthy. And no one really understood. No one really grasped the consequences of what he had been through. They all assumed that, after a few weeks and a few visits to the shrinks, he was back on his feet and could continue with his work. That, admittedly, was true. And he had wanted to go back to work, because sitting in the flat was driving him up the walls. But that did not mean that all was well, and it certainly did not mean that his ordeal was forgotten.

Maybe that was the reason why he could get along so well with Lucas North. The Senior Case Officer had endured torture for much longer than Julius, but he understood, which was a relief, even if he would never admit that when called on it. And it helped that Lucas had experience with wizards and was not positively staring at him, like Tariq had done on his first couple of days. It had hardly been flattering and Julius had felt uneasy for days after.

Amy bit her lip as she realised she had dragged up very unwelcome memories. ‘Well, I didn’t mean…’ She trailed off, and, after another short silence, began anew. ‘Anyway, nobody here is thinking that you’re running errands for Source of Light during your lunch break.’

‘No, but you do think my father is.’ Julius could not exactly define what it was about Amy’s attitude that was vexing him now. They hadn’t quarrelled in months and it seemed foolish to do it now, over something that should be purely about work. Maybe it vexed him because Amy was demonstrating the most professional attitude at the moment. It was him who was in denial about the mere possibility that his father could be involved in this mess.

‘We don’t know that,’ Amy pointed out. ‘Mr Pearce said as much.’ Usually she called their boss Harry these days. Mr Pearce was something they’d called him when he wasn’t really their boss yet and they didn’t want to mix him up with Harry Potter. That she was doing this now, was a dead giveaway that she was ill at ease. ‘Lorcan himself said that there could be Polyjuice Potion involved.’ She grimaced. ‘And Lucas said that we don’t even know how reliable Lorcan is. He could just be playing us.’

‘You don’t believe that,’ Julius pointed out. Lorcan had been fond of Amy since she had started her first year at Hogwarts. Little Miss Hamilton, he used to call her, and it had been meant as endearment rather than insult. She had a soft spot for the wizard in return. She saw him as a big brother of some kind.

Amy smiled ruefully. ‘I don’t,’ she agreed. ‘But we have to be open to the possibility that he is. He is still unproven as an asset, so naturally we’ll have to be careful.’

The slightest suggestion on her part that he was not being that professional made him want to scream and hex people into oblivion, even more so because he knew that he was being very unprofessional at the moment. He also knew that he was emotionally compromised in this. And he hated it. Years ago he might have laughed at the very notion of him valuing the opinion of mere Muggles, never mind that he would have worked for and with them, but these people had become his colleagues and he was not the same man who had first joined Section D as a punishment for exactly the crime he was now guilty of: unprofessional behaviour. It seemed ironic somehow.

‘Are you telling me that I should just accept that my father is a terrorist?’ He couldn’t help snapping. It seemed unfair, all of it. Would he now have to prove his loyalty all over again? Would he now have to stand up and admit that yes, he knew his father was a criminal, which of course surprised no one, since he had been so bloody unreasonable about Julius’s transfer and marriage?

Amy had opened her mouth to answer that, but Harry Pearce stopped her from making good on that intention. ‘Julius! My office, _now_!’

In a way it was almost a relief to get away from Amy. He loved her, he really did, and they worked well together, but he couldn’t stand the sympathy he read in her eyes. It was just too much. And maybe he was just very ill-equipped to deal with things like pity. He wasn’t used to it. People were far more likely to treat him with a level of wariness. That was something he had gotten used to at Hogwarts; the looks that silently wondered if he wasn’t a Death Eater after all. He felt he was in immediate danger of being regarded in that same way again. Was that not why Harry commanded him to come to his office?

Amy smiled ruefully. ‘You know, when we came here first, Malcolm told me his bark’s worse than his bite. It’s true.’

For a brief moment Julius wondered how Amy – dutiful and rule-abiding Amy – had ever gotten herself on the wrong side of Harry Pearce, but this was not the time, and to be quite honest, he had too many other things on his mind. He just managed a curt nod and got up. If Harry was going to decommission him, he might as well get the whole sorry business over with. Sometimes, he reflected, the bark was worse than the bite, a lot worse.

He entered, giving a half-hearted knock on the door before he did so. Usually he never bothered; no one did. It annoyed the Section Head to death, but it was so unusual to knock that people only did it when something was terribly wrong. Come to think of it, things were terribly wrong. And Julius had no ambition to send Harry’s mood even further towards explosive.

‘What is wrong?’ Harry asked wearily when he heard the knock.

Julius didn’t deem that worthy of a verbal reply. ‘Why am I here?’ He could guess, but he feared his decommission would be made real the moment he spoke the words. Irrational of him, maybe, but that was how he felt and he wasn’t going to put his career on the line voluntarily. Hard as it may be for some of his old acquaintances to believe, he liked to work here.

‘Sit down,’ Harry said. It didn’t do anything to calm the nerves that were threatening to boil over already.

‘I’d rather not,’ he said before he thought it through. He could handle this, he told himself. He wasn’t a woman that he needed to sit when bad news was delivered to him.

Harry’s stare told him that this was one of these things bearing the label of non-negotiable, and after a repeat of the command, Julius did as he was told.

‘Why am I here?’

He had never been particularly gifted in the art of diplomacy, and the nerves made him worse. He just wanted this over and done with. Here and now. And Harry would be right to think him a security risk. He was the one who had said quite plainly that the Statute of Secrecy should be abandoned and who had a father who was striving to achieve just that. Harry would be a fool to want to keep him.

‘Source of Light,’ was the predictable answer. ‘I want to know that you can handle it.’

That was not what Julius had been suspecting and for a minute his boss’s words caught him by surprise and knocked him off balance. In his head he had been practising suitable replies, pleas – although he would never refer to them as pleas when called on it – to make Harry let him stay.

‘Handle it?’ In his state of not-quite-understanding he stupidly parroted the last two words as a question. Well, not stupidly, not quite. It was one of Amy’s tactics, to do that, because people could interpret it whichever way they wanted and you could always say that you had meant it in another way. One of her better ideas, to be sure.

There was no misunderstanding with Harry though. ‘I don’t want you to be emotionally compromised in this.’

‘I won’t be,’ Julius vowed.

It was slowly dawning on him that he was clearly not in immediate danger of being decommissioned, and he wasn’t planning on entering the danger zone in the foreseeable future. If that meant throwing himself at the operation with all that he had, then so be it. It wasn’t as if he had the back-up option of the Auror Department after this, not if his father was truly involved in all this mess. Guilty by association was something the Ministry of Magic appeared to be rather fond of. They may not always throw such persons in prison, but they didn’t go offering them good jobs either. Lorcan Rowle was the living and breathing example of that.

He pretended to be bored with it all, something his boss probably wouldn’t buy, as he added: ‘Why would I be?’

‘Julius, your father is one of the main suspects…’ Harry began. Julius loathed the sympathy he heard in the older man’s voice.

The wizard interrupted. ‘With all due respect, until we have verified that the man Lorcan saw was indeed Marcus Burke and not someone who stole his appearance with Polyjuice Potion, we do not know that it is him. And even if it is, we have fallen out. It won’t be a problem.’ And if he told himself that enough, he might even start to believe it.

Clearly this was the answer the Section Head had hoped for, because he gave a satisfied nod. ‘Good. Because you are going to pay him a visit tomorrow and plant some bugs with bloody good sound reception while you’re there. Ask Tariq for one of his magic resistant bugs, and go there tomorrow.’

Whatever it was that he had expected, this was not it. Tariq’s magic-proof listening devices were the very least of his worries. He knew Amy and the new techie had been working on something like that, but he hadn’t known they had already succeeded. He shouldn’t have been surprised; between Tariq’s enthusiasm for the project and Amy’s outstanding spellwork it was a small wonder they had worked out something already.

But that was not what had him frowning. ‘And how had you imagined that?’ he drawled. ‘“Hi, dad, long time no see. Oh, and by the way, my boss wants to know whether or not you’re caught up in this whole criminal Source of Light business?” He loathes me these days. He won’t welcome me.’ He was more likely to slam the door in his face. ‘And if I visit because of work, he’ll know we’re onto him.’

‘You are a spy, Julius. You’ll think of something,’ Harry shot back.

He probably would think of something. He was resourceful enough, and Harry knew that as well. Truth be told, his boss demonstrated a lot of trust in him by letting him deal with his father. He must have considered that Julius could be emotionally compromised, very easily so, and yet he sent him in all the same. Clearly he didn’t think Julius was about to turn traitor anytime soon.

Under any other circumstances Julius might have felt ready to grab a Butterbeer to celebrate the fact, but not today. Now, when he walked out of the office, he only felt more burdened than when he had gone in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: a walk-in in Thames House. Please review?


	4. Lucas North

Lucas North could safely say that he could deal with most strange situations thrown at him. He had known about the existence of wizards for well over a decade, had dealt with eight years of torture and some betrayal. Source of Light shouldn’t be so much different. At the very least it shouldn’t be as shocking as it was.

But it was. Not the organisation itself, though; wizards were hardly the inventors of coups, conspiracies and terrorism. It was finding out just how wide-spread the movement was that left him in immediate danger of going slack-jawed. The moment Amy had concluded her report on what she knew, Ros had taken over. If she was shocked, then she hid it well. But then, Lucas wondered if Ros Myers even knew what the word shock meant. She seemed wholly incapable of it, as well as several other emotions widely known to the rest of mankind. At times he wondered what Adam Carter had seen in her. True, she had a good sense of humour, and was utterly devoted to the job, not very unlike Lucas himself, and she was a good colleague, but she could also be very rude and unfeeling.

She had sent Ruth and Jo to see what they could ferret out about their two current suspects and had burdened Amy and Lucas with the terrible job of re-reading months’ worth of _Daily Prophets_ to see if anything could be learned from that. Not for the first time that day Lucas cursed the fact that Harry kept them for months on end before throwing them away. And wizards didn’t have internet, which meant they had to scan every bloody thing manually. And wizarding papers had not yet entered the twenty-first century; they were large and took up most of his desk.

They were to find any articles relating to the abolishing of the Stature of Secrecy and the people writing it, and then pass the names on to Ruth, so that she could try and find out who they were. They had been at it since about three pm last afternoon until they were finally allowed to go home, eat and get some sleep. Then they had been going from the moment they stepped foot on the Grid this morning. It was just about time for lunch break, but Amy hadn’t mentioned any lunch and Lucas didn’t feel a burning need to inquire whether or not they could take a break, even though his eyes were stinging from trying to make sense of all the newspaper articles he had seen today.

The magical analyst had positively thrown herself at the task. It looked like she was actually taking it personally. Could be that she was; it was her father-in-law that was stirring up trouble and an old school friend of hers who had gotten involved somehow.

Nevertheless he was glad when Ruth walked over to their now combined workstations, carrying files. ‘Lucas, Amy, do you have a moment?’

He was about to thank her for a timely interruption, but thought better of it. Instead he settled for a neutral, but meant ‘Sure.’

Amy took herself over to his desk, latest newspaper still in her hands, seemingly completely unaware of the fact that her fingers were stained with the ink. She was clearly too focused on her work to pay attention to much else. ‘Have you found anything?’

‘Bits and pieces,’ Ruth answered vaguely. ‘Nothing I’ve got any evidence for anyway. But John Woods has gotten himself a phone, quite recently. I… ehm… I called in a favour from an old contact at GCHQ and got him to give me his phone records.’ She put a sheaf of papers on the desk in front of them.

Lucas gave the top one a quick once over before he took a peek at the other ones. Even without Ruth spelling it out for him, it was rather obvious that Woods’s phone had been used to call only four phones. All four had been called at least every two or three days. There was never longer between a phone call to a certain number than that.

‘He makes the calls,’ he observed. ‘They don’t call him.’ Classic terrorist behaviour, he couldn’t help but think. This was the commander communicating with the foot soldiers. They were only there to await orders. They didn’t initiate action themselves, they waited until they were told to act.

‘So, what are these calls for?’ Amy asked, wringing her hands now that she had put the newspaper away and was consequently spreading the ink all over the skin that until then had been clean.

Ruth shook her head to signal that she didn’t know, something that probably frustrated her. Lucas hadn’t known her for all that long, but he had heard stories, mainly from Jo – Ros had turned into a stubborn oyster when he had brought the subject up for some reason – about her work before she left. What he had heard was that she was very thorough, and didn’t rest until she had gathered every last piece of information that could be found. ‘I’m working on that.’

‘Calling in more favours from former lovers?’ he teased. Ruth’s cheeks flushed bright red. ‘Do we have an ID on the owners of the other phones?’

Ruth smirked triumphantly. There really was no other description that would do that expression on her face justice. ‘Three of them,’ she confirmed. ‘They were stupid enough to register under their own names. This one,’ she pointed at the number at the top of the page, ‘belongs to one Oliver Fawley, pure-blood, born in Mould-on-the-Wold in 1987, currently working for Magical Maintenance in the Ministry of Magic.’

‘He wrote a letter to the _Prophet_ three weeks ago to say he agreed with an article about the abolishing of the Statute,’ Amy recalled.

Ruth nodded. ‘And the article was written by one Philip Kelly, editor for the Daily Prophet, and owner of the second phone. He’s a Muggle-born.’

‘There are Muggle-born in on the plot?’ Amy almost seemed surprised. ‘I thought he was half-blood?’

‘His step-father is a wizard,’ Ruth explained. ‘Real father left before Philip was born, and Harold Kelly all but adopted the boy. Gave him his surname and all.’

Lucas frowned. ‘How do you know then?’

Another smile. ‘I found his birth certificate.’

It would seem that Jo had not exactly been exaggerating when she had praised Ruth to the skies within his hearing. Clearly her praise had been more an understatement than anything else. She really was good. ‘And the third phone?’

‘Owned by Darren Blake, half-blood, seventeen years old,’ Ruth reported.

‘Shouldn’t he be at school this time of year?’  Lucas asked. He remembered hearing once that technology didn’t work at Hogwarts and besides, the lad couldn’t really do anything useful for the cause if he was stuck at school all day.

‘Home-schooled by his mother apparently,’ Ruth answered. ‘It’s allowed,’ she added when she saw his questioning glance.

Lucas took her word for it. He may know something about wizards, but he was far from all knowing on the subject. True, he had played some part in the Second Wizarding War, but that had not yielded too many valuable insights in normal non-war magical society. Apparently they had their own magical recruits – and Ruth – for that sort of thing. He had to admit to being impressed by what she had managed to discover, and in such a short period of time too.

‘Do we know anything about the owner of the last phone?’ He remembered her saying that they knew three names, but there were four phones.

Ruth grimaced. ‘Pay as you go,’ she answered. ‘Tariq’s trying to track it down, but it’s not working so far.’

‘Too much magic around it?’ Amy suggested. ‘Magic does sometimes corrupt the signal.’

‘Possible,’ Rut admitted.

Either way it would be driving Tariq nuts. The techie was still new to this job, and he was clearly of the belief that technology should be able to do anything he wanted it to do. Maybe that was why Amy and he had been working on something that made it possible for technology to still function when magic was in the area. That trick had just not been performed on the last phone, making it impossible to locate the thing.

‘Keep at it,’ he ordered her. Normally that was Ros’s job, but there was something between the Section Chief and the senior intelligence analyst that made them keep their distance from one another, for whatever reason. Ros wouldn’t mind him telling Ruth to do what no doubt was the best option anyway, would she? Although with Ros there was really no telling what she did and didn’t approve of.

Ruth returned to her desk and Lucas resigned himself to more newspaper articles. Oh, bugger it all, he was going to get a bite first. ‘Sandwich?’ he asked Amy.

She nodded. ‘Sure. Do you… ehm… do you mind getting them?’ Her eyes wandered back to the newspaper she had spread out on the desk in front of her. ‘Only, I thought I’d keep going for a bit longer.’

It was rather predictable, but then, that was why he had offered. ‘No problem,’ he said, and he made to turn and leave the Grid, when his phone started to ring. Probably Harry fetching him to his office for a progress report, since there were no other pressing cases at the moment. ‘Lucas North, Section D.’

To his surprise it was not Harry, not even Ros, who had called him. instead he found himself listening to one of the security guards downstairs announcing that there was a walk-in that needed dealing with, as soon as possible too. Lucas inwardly groaned as he listened to the description helpfully provided to him by aforementioned guard. Old lady, over sixty years of age, probably older, wearing a hat and in the possession of a small dog that was currently in the process of sniffing the man’s colleague’s shoes.

Walk-ins were often a far too kind word for paranoid patriots. The worst thing was that they often really thought that their information was helpful, which it sometimes was, but not often when coming from the kind of person he had just been told was waiting downstairs. It had yet to dawn on some people that not every Asian man with a beard was a potential terrorist.

‘I’m coming,’ he said, only just managing to keep the groan that was threatening to escape his throat long enough until the conversation was at an end.

Amy sent him a scrutinising glance. ‘Something wrong?’

‘Walk-in.’ That didn’t count as wrong, strictly speaking, but it didn’t sound like a relaxing lunch break either. ‘The kind that’s over sixty years old and has a pet dog the size of a rat.’

Amy visibly recoiled from the idea. ‘Oh. Should I go down?’

Lucas shrugged. ‘Might be just as well.’ Strength in numbers and all that crap. And it was possibly best not to ask of Ros to go and deal with this. The Section Chief’s well of patience had been running notoriously low the last few days, and much of it was probably thanks to the wizards and their troubles. Ros had never been known for her tolerance of all things magic. She tolerated it at the best of times, but Lucas suspected it was mostly because it made her nervous, like it had made his skin crawl when he had first found out about it and he had been told that there were curses that could kill him faster than he could say magic. He had seen a lot worse since, which was probably why he had lost most of his fear for the wand-waving weirdoes, as Ros tended to call them. No matter what nasty tricks wizards had up their sleeves, the FSB could doubtlessly do worse.

These days magic was mostly very interesting. He could get along well with Julius. They had been out in the field together a couple of times, and it had been pleasant working with him. Amy was difficult to connect with, not in the very least because she was rather shy and had her nose stuck heaps of paper and parchment the rest of the time. She tended to ramble a lot as well. But then, she was like that with most of her colleagues, so Lucas didn’t pay it much mind.

The old woman who claimed she had some information had been guided to a small room where they could talk without being overheard. Unfortunately the dog had been allowed to go in with her, and it started to inspect Amy’s shoes the moment they set foot over the threshold. With some amusement Lucas noted that his assumption of the dog being no bigger than a rat had not been all that far off the mark. _More like spot on_.

‘Are you from MI-5?’ the old woman – definitely over seventy years old – asked, clearly in a state of panic. Lucas had to admit that he may need to change his opinion, even if only a little. The woman was clearly terrified, and people generally didn’t get terrified for no reason. Of course it could still be overreaction. It wouldn’t be the first time he was confronted with people who got themselves worked up for no good reason at all. But he wouldn’t know until she had told her story.

‘We are.’ Amy was the one to reply. ‘Why don’t we all sit down and you can tell us what happened?’ The dog had started to lick her shoes, and she tried to get out of the way of the animal’s tongue.

‘At least it isn’t peeing on them,’ he whispered at her when they took their seats with a glance at the dog.

Amy grimaced. ‘Thank Merlin.’

Lucas grinned, but schooled his face back into an expression of polite interest when he faced the woman again, working his way through all the necessary protocols before he could let the walk-in – Elizabeth Small, seventy-three years old – tell her story.

She was wringing her hands in a very Amy-like manner. ‘I really don’t know where to start,’ she said. ‘It was all so strange.’ The niceties seemed to have taken the edge of the panic though, something Lucas was all too grateful for.

He conjured up his most reassuring smile. ‘Why don’t you start at the beginning?’ he suggested. On second thought, ploughing through months of newspapers wasn’t that bad a way to spend his lunch break.

‘I was walking my dog,’ Mrs Small narrated. ‘He does love long walks, although he isn’t as young as he used to be, so I do have to carry him from time to time. But it’s no real trouble, you see, because…’

‘Where were you walking your dog?’ Amy asked patiently. When she put her mind to it, she really had a way with people. Lucas himself didn’t have any trouble with obtaining information either, usually, although Ros teasingly remarked that his ways were most effective when practised on females. She had glared at him when he inquired why on earth they failed to work on her if that was indeed the case.

‘The Embankment,’ the old lady answered. ‘And there was this young man.’ She took a deep breath to collect herself, which was needed; her hands were shaking, and Lucas could not for the life of him figure out why.

‘Did he rob you, Mrs Small?’ he asked patiently. Well, he mostly pretended to be patient, which wasn’t quite the same thing.

‘No, no, not at all,’ she said quickly. ‘He was really nice, you see. He came up to me and said that he had noticed that my coat had a tear and if perhaps I would permit him to mend it for me. Well, of course he didn’t look like the kind of man who’d know a needle from a thread, so I asked him how he thought he would do that.’

Mrs Small was in full flow now, and didn’t note at all that Lucas and Amy were exchanging glances. Lucas would never think of himself as being intuitive, but there was something rather fishy about this all. Or maybe he had been reading too many magical newspapers in the last twenty-four hours. Ros would probably tell him that was the case.

‘It was very strange, Mr…’ she went on.

‘Nolan,’ he supplied helpfully. ‘John Thompson.’

‘Well, it was all very strange, Mr Thompson.’ Mrs Small was fidgeting with the handle of her handbag. ‘He said, “why, with magic of course” and then the pointed a piece of wood at my coat and the tear was gone.’

 _At which point you started panicking_. Lucas could fill in the blanks for himself. It was easy enough to imagine, even more so because he might be in some danger of panicking himself. Well, he wouldn’t call it panic, not exactly. But given the fact that only yesterday they had learned of the existence of Source of Light, an organisation dedicated to showing magic to as many people as they possibly could, this story could hardly be dismissed as coincidence. And he didn’t think it was just a hallucination of this old woman either. Most people surely would think of it as that, but most people didn’t know about the existence of witches and wizards either, although Source of Light was clearly doing its best to change that very soon.

The silence had lasted too long. The panic on Mrs Small’s face was replaced by what looked like righteous anger. ‘I am not out of my mind, Mr Thompson,’ she all but snapped, the very image of an indignant granny. Under any other circumstance it would have been amusing to see that she turned to him as the senior figure. It was probably for the best that she didn’t know that Amy was an actual witch, one of the people that had sent her into a panic attack to begin with.

‘I did not say that you were, Mrs Small,’ Lucas said calmly. Of course he had no way of knowing if her coat really had been torn, but it was rather obvious that there was nothing wrong with it now. ‘Could you perhaps describe this young man to us?’

That seemed to pacify her some. ‘Certainly I can.’ She seemed insulted at the suggestion – which Lucas hadn’t been making – that she could not be relied upon to provide a physical description of the young man who had been found guilty of performing magic in the middle of a crowded city. ‘He was young, between eighteen and twenty, I’d say. He had, yes, grey eyes, and brown hair. It was very curly, I remember that very clearly. And he had a birthmark on his left… no, right cheek, just under his eye, very distinctive. He wore very peculiar clothing, though.’ She frowned, as if that was his worst fault.

‘In what way were they peculiar, Mrs Small?’ It was one of the first times since their walk-in had begun her story that Amy had spoken, and only now did Lucas note that she had paled considerably. Well, she would have, probably, given the circumstances. He wasn’t about to jump to his feet and do a happy dance around the bloody room himself. And he’d bet that Harry wasn’t going to do that either. All hell would break loose the moment the Section Head caught wind of this. Not to mention Ros.

‘Why, it was almost as if he was wearing a dress,’ Mrs Small said. ‘Black, I believe.’ She shook her head in almost disbelief. ‘You see the strangest types these days.’ If she had recovered enough to comment on the clothes of the wizard, although she of course didn’t know he was one, then she wouldn’t be in such a state as she had been before. Lucas was grateful for it. The last thing he needed was a hysterical woman when there were magic-performing wizards on the loose. He had hoped for a bit more time, but clearly time had run out. They would have to deal with this now.

Amy ignored Mrs Small in favour of turning to him. ‘John, could I have a quick word with you outside?’ The tone of voice suggested this was not a question he could say no to.

So he nodded and followed her out of her room, leaving Mrs Small to spend some quality time with her rat. Dog. Whatever. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. _Apart from rule breaking wizards of course._

Amy took a deep breath. ‘I think I know who she was talking about.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Harry Potter and Harry Pearce meet to discuss Source of Light. Please review? I’d really like to know what you think.


	5. Harry Potter

Harry Potter had had three years to learn that receiving a message from Harry Pearce, his counterpart in the Muggle security services, never boded well. Not that there had been all that much contact between them in the past years, just the occasional request to turn a blind eye to some of the magical escapades of some officers from Section D, officers that he had taken from Harry’s own force without any scruples. Then there was the odd note to Obliviate some Muggles who had witnessed aforementioned magical escapades. He supposed he should count himself lucky that no more magical crimes had committed in the Muggle world; Operation Wandless was not something he would ever like to see repeated.

So, it wasn’t that difficult a conclusion to say that something was wrong when a note had been delivered to his office late last afternoon, containing a request to meet the following day for lunch in a restaurant he had never heard of. No reason was mentioned, and so the Head of the Auror Department was left to wonder what Harry Pearce would want from him this time. Clearly this was a more sensitive matter than some magic needing covering up; Mr Pearce always put those requests in a note without as much as a please or a thank you. That he didn’t detail the reason for the meeting was something Harry didn’t like the sound of, at all. Not that Mr Pearce had ever seemed particularly keen to share the information he had; he guarded them closer than a female dragon guarded her eggs. And Harry knew exactly how protective dragons were of those.

‘You off then?’ Ron stood in the doorway, although leaning against would be a more apt description. ‘Do you know what he wants, Pearce?’ The first name was always omitted when his best friend mentioned the head of Section D. Harry always assumed it was as to avoid confusion, but there was a hint of dislike in it as well. Harry wasn’t even sure he could really blame him for that; he wasn’t Harry Pearce’s biggest fan either.

‘I suppose so. It’s in the middle of the City; I can’t Apparate anywhere nearby.’ He had a lingering suspicion that had been done deliberately, so that they would meet on somewhat equal footing.

‘Give those lobbyists long enough and they’ll have the Statute of Secrecy repealed,’ Ron remarked casually. ‘Then we could Apparate wherever we like.’

And there certainly was something rather appealing about that, and the papers were writing about it a lot. The idea itself was not entirely novel – throughout the centuries there had always been clamouring for more interaction with their Muggle neighbours – but it had never been this widespread as it was now. It was a British initiative, but it was spreading to the continent as well. Harry wasn’t sure what to make of it. On one hand he applauded the notion; he’d grown up in the Muggle world, and quite frankly it was somewhat ridiculous that the wizarding world was still hiding when witch hunts had been over and done with for ages. On the other hand he was not all that sure that the respective societies were ready for one another. He had seen how his uncle had handled wizards – which was to say not at all – and he had also seen wizards trying and failing to comprehend Muggle society. If that was any indication for how the rest of the British population was going to respond, that was the ideal recipe for chaos. No, if such a thing were to happen, it should be done slowly, Harry thought, very slowly.

‘Well, I can’t see it happen anytime soon,’ he said. There were enough purebloods being less than enthusiastic about the whole idea. They would stall the process for as long as they could, if they didn’t derail it altogether. There were always people clinging to the past as if their very lives depended on it. ‘And I have to go. Mr Pearce probably won’t thank me for being late.’

‘You know, for all your saying that he’s the one resembling a bulldog, he’s rather acting like the master summoning his dog.’ Harry shoved him in passing, making his best friend stumble and almost fall. ‘Didn’t you have to oversee the newbies?’

‘They’re not that hopeless,’ Ron protested. ‘Unlike the last bunch.’ Harry silently agreed as he made his way to the Atrium. He really didn’t know how lucky he had been with Robert West, Julius Burke and Amy Hamilton until he didn’t have them anymore. They had been rivals and childish at times, and they certainly had driven him to despair at least once a week, but they’d had potential. They had the skills and the talent necessary for the job. The Head of the Auror Department recalled with perfect clarity that he’d said to Kingsley that the other candidates simply were not good enough, but after Robert had died, and Julius and Amy had left, he’d had to give them at least a chance.

Now there was something he rather bitterly regretted. They were dramatic, a complete failure. He’d had no choice but to dismiss them. Even Kingsley could not protest after one of the bright new sparks had accidentally set fire to a sheaf of parchment, something he could evidently not contain, after which the whole department had to be evacuated until the smoke had been cleared out. Of course the important documents had all been reduced to ashes by then.

But now he had a couple of recruits that seemed promising, two in their first year of training, two boys, both Gryffindor, freshly out of Hogwarts, and two in their second year, a Slytherin witch and a Hufflepuff wizard. There were no rivalries, no pranks that endangered operations and no fire on the work floor. He counted his blessings.

The London streets were crowded when he emerged from the Leaky Cauldron, to which he had Flooed in order to come somewhere a bit closer to his destination than he would have been if he had exited the Ministry by the visitor’s entrance. He walked the rest of the way. Of course he could have used public transport, but it was dry and there were even patches of blue amidst the clouds, and the walk cleared his head. It didn’t mean that he was suddenly ecstatic at the prospect of meeting his Muggle counterpart again. Unscheduled meetings always meant bad news in his line of work.

Even though he was sure he was early, Harry Pearce had still beaten him here. Well, he should not have been so surprised, he imagined. It was one of the things he did, probably because it made him feel like he had the upper hand over someone he didn’t otherwise understand. Harry also suspected that Mr Pearce didn’t fully trust him, something probably caused by years of bad experiences with wizards and their – lethal – magic; he’d been around for the Second Wizarding War after all, maybe even the first as well.

‘Mr Pearce,’ he acknowledged as he shook the other man’s hand.

‘Mr Potter.’ The response wasn’t that much more enthusiastic. Clearly neither of them really wanted to be here. It was a necessary meeting, nothing more. For some reason this didn’t make Harry feel any better about being here at all.

There was no time wasted on pleasantries. Harry wasn’t quite sure if that was something he might have liked. Pleasantries always made it feel like things could not possibly be all that bad, but on the other hand he would like to spend as little time in Mr Pearce’s presence as he could get away with. He wasn’t overly fond of the man after all, not after Operation Wandless. It was not as if he actually blamed the man for the loss of Robert West – from what he had been told it had been Robert’s own choice to sacrifice his life for Julius – but he disliked the world in which he operated. For some reason it seemed that much more dangerous. Prior to the Manchester debacle, not one Auror had died in the line of duty since the war, but he let three of his people go out into the Muggle world for a mission, and one of them had died within the week. He rather thought he had good reason not to be too pleased with Harry Pearce, especially when he seemed far too stoic in the face of those events, almost as if this was something he dealt with on a far too regular basis. And that was not the world Harry lived in, not anymore. The world was safe once more after the war, stable, whereas the Muggle society was probably one of the most dangerous he’d ever encounter, which was somewhat strange really.

Harry Pearce clearly knew the owner of the restaurant; he didn’t seem to mind that he was asked to serve his guests lunch in a separate room with closed doors, which only served to strengthen the idea that the matter under discussion was either highly classified or world-shocking, or both.

Maybe that was why Harry was so surprised when the other Harry presented him with a copy of a Daily Prophet once they had ordered. The newspaper was a couple of weeks old, but Harry remembered the article on the front page, a strong plea for abolishing the Statute of Secrecy as soon as possible, well. For days nobody had been able to shut up about it, either to condemn it or to praise it to the skies. If John Woods had been trying to stir up commotion, he’d definitely succeeded. How this could be a threat to Muggles was somewhat beyond him, though.

‘What is it with the article?’ he asked, feeling a bit annoyed at having to ask, since it was rather obvious that Mr Pearce assumed he already knew. That was what his facial expression was implying anyway.

‘This movement,’ the other Harry said. ‘What do you know about them?’

A request for information, then. That was something not altogether new, although mostly they used letters and even the occasional phone call to liaise. Face to face was something that had not happened since Operation Wandless, and Harry was under the impression that both parties had been perfectly all right with leaving it at that.

‘It’s nothing organised,’ Harry replied, hoping that he might actually learn something as long as he pretended to go along with it. He knew from experience that even an oyster was more likely to yield its pearl than the Muggle spy was to share his secrets with the rest of the world. And didn’t he hate it. He had been used enough by so many people – some more successful than others – during his Hogwarts time and he had developed something of an acute allergy to attempts these days. ‘But the sentiment is widespread. There are no more witch hunts and, as far as I am aware, there are no Muggle laws against the use of magic. People are tired of hiding.’ Exactly why he was defending a sentiment that he himself did not wholly agree with, he didn’t know, but he definitely didn’t like the other man’s perceived dislike of the idea.

Maybe that really was all there was to it, he realised. Mr Pearce was subscribed to the Daily Prophet, if he recalled correctly, and had read some articles that worried him. After all, if this ever became more than articles and petitions, it was going to have an impact on the Muggle world he was tasked to protect. And, much as Harry winced at the notion, he may have a very good reason to be wary of wizards and magic. How could he not? He’d only ever seen the worst wizard-kind had to offer.

‘It won’t be a threat to Muggle society,’ he said. ‘As it is, there is no telling if they will ever get further than lobbying for it. Many people have doubts and objections. The Minister himself is not convinced of the benefits of such a repeal of the Statute.’ _And neither am I_. That was something he kept back, though. Harry Pearce did enough dismissing it without Harry Potter adding to it.

‘You’re wrong.’ No suggestion, no question. Harry Pearce spoke the words with an air of finality, as if the matter had already been discussed and he was just presenting him with the conclusion, something that could no longer be argued over. It got on Harry’s every last nerve. Who exactly did this man think he was? Bulldog and the master both he was, Harry thought, remembering Ron’s casual remark. He really couldn’t stand that kind of behaviour.

‘And how’s that, sir?’ It took him all the self-control he possessed not to openly sneer at that tone of voice. There was still something of that school boy left, buried deep down. But old habits die hard, and Harry Pearce for a moment sounded so much like Snape that Harry could not help himself. Mr Pearce ignored the barely concealed challenge.

‘My team have gathered evidence that a secret movement exists at the heart of this new “sentiment,” whose intentions have nothing to do with peaceful co-existence with us so-called Muggles.’ He didn’t even try to hide his contempt for the word. Even Harry would have to admit that the word itself sounded rather degrading.

Harry frowned. ‘What movement? I haven’t heard of it.’

For a moment he was being subjected to Mr Pearce’s scrutinising gaze before the other man decided that he was apparently telling the truth. Relations had never been anywhere near smooth, not by any stretch of the imagination, and both parties were guilty of concealing vital information on several occasions, but there had never been any outright lies between them, not that Harry was aware of. What had changed now that his Muggle counterpart suddenly distrusted him like this?

‘I can’t tell you.’ Harry Pearce was brusque and blunt, nothing new there, but Harry Potter hated the distrust, the unspoken implication that he was no longer trustworthy and that was the reason he kept his cards so close to his chest.

And it still got on his every nerve.‘Why not?’ he demanded. Oh yes, he had grown up since he had lived through the war, one simply could not remain a naïve child when they learned that they had to sacrifice their own life willingly in order for so many others to live. It didn’t mean that his temper was always under control. And right now it was being subjected to quite a lot of pressure.

‘Your Ministry is compromised. My team are investigating at the moment, but until we know more, we can’t give you any more information.’ Mr Pearce avoided meeting his gaze, instead focusing his attention on the waiter who had come in with their meals. Classic tactic when it came to avoiding a conversation one didn’t want to have, but no less annoying for it.

And it was something of a shock. The information itself… well, it wasn’t all that shocking. A nasty surprise, certainly, but Harry had been in this line of work long enough to know that people always found a way to twist good causes to disasters. Wizards and Muggles were rather alike in that regard. It was the announcement that the Ministry was compromised that had Harry worrying. The last time the Ministry had been untrustworthy had been during the war, and the memories of that time were still vivid in his mind. And if Harry Pearce seemed to think that things were that bad…

Still, it didn’t make any sense. Even if there were people who would want to use the abolishment of the Statute of Secrecy for their own ends, he failed to see how much havoc they could wreak. True, the act itself could cause chaos and panic if it wasn’t handled properly – and probably even then it would be highly unlikely that things went smoothly – but there was only so much terrorists could do with this development, right? Maybe he was still very naïve after all, but he just couldn’t see how this was a threat to national security.

‘What do they want, then? Or can’t you even tell me that?’ There was definitely some of his anger seeping through in his voice. He hadn’t meant for that to happen.

‘In the end it is their goal to take over the government and establish magical supremacy over Britain.’ The tone of voice was more than sufficient to make Harry see what exactly the spy’s opinion on the matter was.

‘That sounds like a Death Eater ideal to me,’ he commented.

‘Only they were never known to go about it in a peaceful way,’ Mr Pearce said pleasantly. ‘Of course these people are only willing to remain peaceful as long as things are going their way. My sources indicate that they have no reservations about turning violent if they are met with resistance and persecution.’

‘So, what would you have me do?’ Harry asked. Every last fibre of his being objected to cooperating with this man after he was treated with so little respect, but something told him that this was bigger than his hurt feelings. Taking over a Muggle government was something that sent a shiver down his spine, the mention of magical supremacy made him lose his appetite. He’d heard too much of that a little over a decade ago. He knew what it meant, and it wasn’t good. Even more so, if the Statute was indeed repealed and the Muggles got comfortable around magic, for a clever and charismatic wizard it might be all too easy to gain power.

The answer was nothing short of disappointing. ‘Nothing. The moment they know we are on to them, they’ll slip into even deeper cover than they already are. My team will handle this, but we will make sure to inform you when there are developments you should be made aware of.’ Mr Pearce must have seen the incredulous and angry look Harry bestowed on him, because he added: ‘At the moment we are acting on a strictly need to know basis, and you do not need to know anything more at the moment.’

 _He’s not sure I am not one of them_ , Harry realised. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth, but at the same time also made him very uncomfortable. There had never been real trust, but if Harry Pearce didn’t even trust the Auror Department, his supposed allies, then exactly how widespread was this movement he was speaking of? And exactly how dangerous were they?

This didn’t mean he was going to stand for the suggestion that he himself could not be trusted. ‘Mr Pearce…’

But he was ignored in favour of answering a phone that chose that exact moment to ring. A little too convenient, if Harry was honest, but he could hardly object to the spook taking the call. ‘Pearce.’ He had not looked all that good-humoured when he had entered the restaurant, but the frown on his forehead became all that more prominent as he listened to the voice on the other end of the line. It was a woman’s voice, Harry heard, but he couldn’t make out the words. He could hear the tone of voice, though. Panic. ‘What did you say?’ Harry Pearce snapped. After another few seconds in which the woman’s voice rapidly said – possibly repeated – something, he nodded, although she couldn’t see that. ‘I am on my way.’ He ended the conversation and got to his feet. ‘Mr Potter,’ he acknowledged. ‘I’ll keep you informed.’

He had swept out of the room before Harry could even reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having two characters by the name of Harry in the same chapter was something of a challenge, especially since they also have the same initials. I really hope it wasn’t too confusing.  
> Next time we’ll see something more of Source of Light, through the eyes of a Muggle who is completely unaware of the chaos he will be creating.  
> Please review?


	6. Peter Smith

It was just another ordinary day. Well, it was ordinary apart from the fact that the sun was actually shining for once. Every now and then Peter Smith felt that sunny days in England could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Well, at least the sunny days that he could actually sit outside and enjoy he could count on the fingers of one hand, because for some reason sunny days were never scheduled during the weekend.

Not that it was the weekend now. It was just an ordinary Wednesday, but he had the whole afternoon to himself and the sun was out. Of course, there was studying to be done, but who was to say that studying could not be done from a park bench?

Not that this was exactly the quietest place in London, really far too noisy to do any serious learning. Not that Peter specifically minded. He had weeks still to get all of this stuff into his head. This was probably going to be something of a learning and relaxing session at the same time, the kind of afternoon that left him feeling wonderfully lazy and content. Those were the best kind of days anyway, so he wouldn’t be heard complaining.

Soon it turned out that the book could really no longer capture his attention. There was a group of people in the middle of the field in front of him, laughing and pointing excitedly at a young man standing in front of them, performing a series of seemingly magic tricks, one of those people who liked to entertain the passers-by in the hopes of them giving him a little money. This guy seemed to be a student, like Peter himself, probably using his talents to make a little extra cash. And he was attracting quite the crowd as well. People didn’t usually go over for just another hardly capable conjurer of cheap tricks, so this guy was probably something good.

Peter was naturally curious, but in general he wasn’t that nosy to go over and take a look, especially not when he had procured such a good bench in the sun. All the other ones were taken, so if he got up now, his would be occupied the moment he lifted his heels. And really, that was not worth it.

He dozed off for a bit, but the guy didn’t seem to have any intentions of leaving at all. In fact, he seemed to enjoy himself more than most of the spectators, who watched for a while and then wandered off to find their own spot in the sun. Peter shrugged it away.

‘Wow!’ A little girl’s voice snapped him out of his not-quite-sleep on the bench. ‘Can you do that again? Please?’

Peter looked up and saw the girl, dancing around the student, smiling widely, holding a small bird in her hand. The small crowd had mostly dissolved since he had last looked, so he got a good look at the source of all the commotion for the first time. The student – or what he guessed was a student – was probably a few years younger than Peter himself was, with brown curly hair. If he was trying to pass as magician, he’d certainly chosen the right clothing. He appeared to be wearing something that wasn’t quite a dress, but that was certainly bordering on it. He was also holding a stick that was meant to pass for a wand.

‘What would you do with more birds?’ the student asked, not unkindly. ‘You have one of them already.’

‘He needs a friend,’ the little girl explained with an air of superiority, as if the guy didn’t understand anything about life at all. ‘Else he might get lonely.’

A wide smile appeared on the face of the young man. ‘Well, we can’t have that now, can we?’ He made some moves with the “wand” and said something that Peter couldn’t quite hear from the point where he was sitting, but he could see the result. From the tip of the wand came not just one, but certainly four or five fully formed birds, birds that had certainly not been there a second earlier.

Peter had a slight suspicion his eyes were the size of saucers as he sat up straighter and narrowed his eyes against the light of the sun to see better. He didn’t think he had been mistaken; he had been watching and he had seen the birds coming from the tip of that “wand” in the blink of an eye after all. But it couldn’t be possible. It had to be some kind of trick, even if it had to be a bloody good one. Where would someone even hide that number of twittering birds? If they’d been there all along, as they probably should have been, then where had he hidden them?

Most of the birds made a quick getaway, but one other move of the “wand” had the last of them suspended in mid-air, from where the young man took it and handed it to the girl with a flourish. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘Now he’s got a friend.’ He took a step back. ‘But they’ll need a cage as well, don’t you think? Can’t have you taking them home in the pockets of your coat.’

The girl may be too young to question what was happening right in front of her, but Peter was old enough to know that bird cages didn’t just appear out of thin air, like the guy over there did. It was like being stuck in some very bizarre dream, something that could not possibly be happening because it defied just about every basic rule of the universe, but it was happening all the same. He could have just fallen asleep on that bench and let his subconscious exaggerate what had been right in front of him the moment he fell asleep, but he didn’t think so. His dreams were seldom filled with this much detail and he didn’t think people who were dreaming actually knew they had been until they woke up.

No, this was probably happening for real, even if he could not fathom how it was possible. It just was. It was… Well, it was almost like magic, except that magic did not exist.  
But his curiosity was well and truly woken now. It was even worth leaving his comfortable place in the sun for to get a closer look. ‘That’s a neat trick, mate,’ he commented, as he strolled over, hands in his pockets to make it look like he wasn’t all that impressed. ‘Where’d you learn to do that then, eh?’

The guy turned around, wide smile plastered on his face. ‘Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,’ he replied promptly.

Peter rolled his eyes. He should have known that he wouldn’t give away the tricks of his trade all that easily, although he had to applaud him for coming up with the most ridiculous name for a school ever invented.

He raised his hands in defeat. ‘Fine,’ he conceded. ‘Don’t tell me then. For the record, though, I am not about to steal your tricks. Just interested, is all.’

‘You couldn’t steal my tricks even if you wanted to,’ the other said, wholly unconcerned.

Peter wasn’t entirely sure that wasn’t some insult or other, but it didn’t sound like it was meant like one. The tone of voice had been rather matter-of-factly to be honest, more like the guy knew for certain that Peter would never master whatever tricks he could perform. Having seen what he was capable of, he wasn’t even all that sure he wasn’t entirely justified in thinking so.

‘Not insulting me, are you?’ he asked for good measure.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ the student said. ‘You liked it, then?’

‘It’s a bit unusual,’ Peter admitted. ‘How’d you do it?’ He shrugged. ‘Since I can’t steal your tricks apparently, you might as well show me.’

He had expected some form of objection against showing top secret tricks, but to his surprise the magician nodded enthusiastically. ‘Sure. No problem. What do you want to see?’  
It was like being let into a huge candy store, Peter reflected, and being offered free choice. He actually had no idea where to start or what to ask for, so he settled for another shrug. ‘Dunno. What can you do?’

‘Pretty much anything you’d like,’ was the reply. ‘Well, except resurrecting the dead, and conjuring food out of thin air. First of the Five Principal Exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration, you know.’ Seeing the expression on Peter’s face, he corrected: ‘Well, you probably don’t. So, ehm, you don’t happen to have anything on you that needs fixing or something? Although please no phone or whatsit, iPod? That the word?’

Peter wasn’t quite sure he understood even half of that speech, and seriously, how could anyone not know what an iPod was in this day and age? Had this guy been living under a rock for the past decade that he had missed out on all the recent developments?

Either way, he decided to focus on something that he had actually understood, the part about fixing stuff. ‘I don’t suppose you’d get anywhere with this?’ he asked, digging up an old book from his backpack. It was a library book, although it should have been written off ages ago. The spine was cracked and some pages showed signs of water damage, making for a rather difficult read. ‘Could you work your “magic” on this?’

He had expected that the magician would back off now, but to his surprise he gave the book a quick once over, before nodding again. ‘Sure thing,’ he said. ‘No trouble. Hang on.’ He took the wand, tapped the book, said ‘ _Reparo!_ ’ and the next thing Peter knew he was holding a book that looked like it had just come out of the book shop the day after it was printed.

For a few seconds he could only stare at it, not even sure that he could believe the evidence of his own eyes. But he knew for sure that he was not dreaming, he hadn’t consumed any alcohol lately and he wasn’t on the drugs. That really left only one possibility: this had actually happened.

‘That’s… That’s…’ He was looking for the right word, before realising that there was no such thing. ‘What was _that_?’

‘That’s magic, that is,’ the magician said, grinning broadly. ‘You all right? You look like you’ve had a bit of a shock.’

That was probably something of an understatement. Peter’s brain was trying to come up with an explanation that didn’t sound completely mental, but he found himself failing. ‘There’s no such thing as magic,’ he pointed out.

The “wizard” rolled his eyes. ‘Dear Merlin, are all you Muggles so keen on insisting on that?’ he muttered to himself, before turning to Peter again. ‘You just saw me doing magic,’ he reminded him. ‘So, you know it’s real. It’s not just a trick.’

‘An illusion, then,’ Peter said. ‘No one can really do such a thing.’

‘You’ll need more proof then?’ The magician seemed deadly serious about that.

Peter reckoned he should be careful with the shrugging. He seemed to be doing it a lot today. But then, it was his habit to do so when he encountered something he had no idea what to do with. And today he was thoroughly out of his comfort zone. ‘If you don’t mind.’ There was an underlying tone of sarcasm. ‘And if you do, mind if I film that?’

He considered that for a moment, but then he got a reluctant nod. ‘I think that’s okay,’ he said. ‘Just stay back a bit. Magic and Muggle technology don’t mix very well.’  
Peter dug up his phone and did as he was told. ‘Just a minute,’ he said, scrolling through the menu until he had what he needed. ‘Right, go ahead.’

Something about this felt very, very bizarre, but at least he would have proof on camera, so that he could actually show people that he wasn’t making any of it up when he told them about this.

The magician seemed to be getting in the right mood for a show. Well, he was quite a showman, Peter supposed. He’d gotten such an audience for a reason. ‘There we go,’ he announced, taking a bronze coin from his pocket, laying it flat on the palm of his left hand. ‘Pay attention.’

Peter was. He zoomed in on the coin – really, which country was that even from? It didn’t look like something people in Britain used – and waited while the “wizard” tapped the coin with his “wand” and spoke an incantation that sounded like it was in Latin, but since Peter’s knowledge of that language began and ended with _veni, vidi, vici_ , he couldn’t be one hundred per cent sure.

What he could be sure about was the result he found himself looking at and he had to look at the screen to see if it showed the same thing to make sure he had not just gone and lost it. Whereas just a second ago there had been a coin lying on the young man’s hand, he was now holding a smallish reddish brown rabbit. And there was no way he could have pulled that one out of a hat, or in this case a sleeve. They were just too narrow. And there had not been a big flash of light to conceal what the conjurer was really up to.  
What he had seen, or what he had thought he had seen, was the coin actually transforming into a rabbit. It had gone very quickly, but he was fairly sure he remembered seeing the coin growing a head and sprouting fur, the same colour as the coin had been. And it was definitely alive. Peter could see it with his own eyes. The coin – or rabbit? – was snuffing the magician’s hand, before it looked up at Peter. He could feel his jaw drop and was unable to stop it.

The wizard frowned. ‘Well, that was a bit rubbish,’ he commented, studying the animal. ‘I was going for grey.’

Peter switched off the camera function, still trying to wrap his head around what he had seen. ‘Rubbish?’ he echoed. ‘That’s… That’s magic!’ What other explanation was there for this anyway? Not that this didn’t sound totally insane, mind, but really, he had seen it happening with his own eyes. ‘How’d you do that?’

Now it was the magician’s time to shrug, even though he looked far too pleased with himself. ‘Like you said, magic. Here, you can have it,’ he added, practically dropping the rabbit into Peter’s hands. The weight was warm and furry, and if he placed his fingers just right, he could feel a heartbeat. And that should not be possible.

‘It’s a rabbit,’ he said stupidly.

‘Yes, it is,’ the wizard confirmed. ‘Keep it. My mum’ll go ballistic if I bring home one more animal. My father’s having a period when he’s trying to transform all kinds of objects into animals. She really wasn’t pleased when he caused an infestation of mice three months ago, although, come to think of it, that was nothing compared to the scene she made when he transformed the dining table into a cow three weeks later.’ He shot a glance at his watch. ‘Oh, and I should have been at a meeting fifteen minutes ago. Sorry, I’ve got to dash. Nice meeting you. Enjoy the rabbit.’

And the next thing Peter knew there was a bang and the wizard had just disappeared. He was just gone. The spot where he had stood was empty. And since they were standing in the middle of a field, next to a shallow duck pond, there was nowhere he could have run to quick enough that he was out of sight before he left Peter’s line of sight. And yet he was nowhere to be seen.

‘There’s no such thing as magic,’ he muttered to himself. He wasn’t sure what exactly he hoped to achieve by that. As it was, he reckoned he didn’t stand a chance at convincing himself, not with the rabbit snuffing the sleeves of his shirt. ‘And what the hell am I going to do with you? Let you loose? Drop you off at a pet shop? Or are you going to turn back into a coin any second now?’ The rabbit looked up at his voice, before deciding that this human was not worth its time and it resumed its inspection of his clothing. ‘Oh dear, talking to a rabbit now. Peter Smith, you’ve officially lost it.’

He could maintain that idea – with a bit of effort, mind – until he got home and dropped the rabbit in his flatmate’s currently vacant and empty aquarium. As soon as he had his hands to himself he watched the video he had just made, only to come to the conclusion that he apparently had not lost his mind sometime during the last hour. He didn’t know much about madness, but he was pretty sure delusions usually didn’t make it from one’s head into a video. For whatever reason, this had really happened. And if he wasn’t convinced, he only had to look at the rabbit again.

This didn’t mean he suddenly knew what to do with this information, until he realised he did have an idea. Because really, what did people do when something unusual happened to them? They posted it on the internet in search of other people who had a similar experience. Normally Peter was not the type to get into discussions on the internet, but this was something of a special case. And he had the video to back his story up. He was not going to be dismissed as a lunatic with a bit too much to drink.

He uploaded the video to YouTube and then decided to do something else, to get the weirdness out of his head. Studying was out of the question – he wouldn’t be able to focus on any of it – and he just needed to do something productive. When the next second the rabbit caught his eye again, he realised that he couldn’t keep it there indefinitely. He either would keep it or give it away, and at least for now he’d rather keep it. He had a feeling he could do with a physical reminder that this whole afternoon was not one bizarre dream.

‘Let’s get you some necessities then, right?’ he said before he realised that he had been talking to the animal again. ‘This is getting ridiculous.’

And it was. Maybe that was why he was not even very surprised when he came home about an hour and a half later and found that the viewing figures for his little video were going through the roof.


	7. Amy Burke

Amy could tell that Lucas was rather unhappy with what she had told him, and she supposed she understood why he reacted that way. It was bad enough that Julius was emotionally invested in this operation. They couldn’t use someone else being potentially compromised as well, even though she had vehemently protested that she was not compromised, not in any way.

They had both known that was not entirely true, though. Out of the two of them, Julius usually was the one who could push personal matters aside and get on with the job, leaving the rest for later. Amy was not entirely sure where that attitude came from, although she suspected it had something to do with him feeling as though he had something to prove, even though he had proven the doubters wrong a long time ago. Or maybe it was nothing as complicated as all that and was it simply a side-effect of being a field agent. She herself never really had to worry about personal involvement with suspects, mainly because she spent her days behind a desk. Not that her work was any less important than Julius’s, anything but in fact, but there were surely less risks involved.

They let Mrs Small go, assuring her that they were on the case and that she didn’t need to worry about a thing. Of course they were lying through their teeth, but the old lady didn’t need to know that. As long as she was certain someone somewhere was doing something, she was happy, and so she took her dog and left.

The walk back to the Grid was a silent one, though, and Amy deliberately busied herself by burying her nose in her notes in order to avoid conversation. There really wasn’t any doubt about the wizard’s identity. Amy knew him. Of course there were plenty of people out there with grey eyes and brown curly hair, even within that age group. But not many of them were wizards and Amy knew only one of them who had that birthmark on his right cheek, just below the eye. Why did he of all people have to get involved in this mess?

She was grateful that Lucas didn’t try to engage her in conversation and she avoided his gaze in order to keep it that way, hurrying off towards her own desk the moment she came through the pods. Her senior colleague made off to make his report to Ros now that Harry had gone to meet with Mr Potter, and Amy returned to her newspapers. There had to be something she could do with those yet, analysing articles and letters, trying to connect the writers, establishing whether or not they were just supporters of this new movement or active members of Source of Light. That was her job, analysing, and she’d like to think she was good at it. The offending wizard could be dealt with her colleagues. She inwardly cringed at the notion.

‘Anything new?’ Ruth inquired when she came by a couple of minutes later.

Amy nodded. ‘Three new names. I know none of them, so you’ll have to check them out, I’m afraid. We might have to nip down to the Ministry itself if Harry can get us access.’ That would hardly be remarkable; she’d done it more often over the past couple of years, but she didn’t have automatic access to the documents anymore now that she officially worked for MI-5. She could use a day away from Thames House right about now, though.

Ruth left with the names while Amy impatiently pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. This task was impossible. How were they ever going to get to the heart of this shady organisation while all they had were newspaper articles? How was one supposed to even find likely suspects in them? It wasn’t as if they had helpfully added _Source of Light member_ behind their names.

 _Newspapers aren’t all you have to go on_. Amy squashed that thought immediately though. No, that didn’t even bear thinking about. He was not even out of his teens for Merlin’s sake. They couldn’t expect that he would solve everything for them, and they certainly couldn’t expect him to go in undercover and take huge risks to uncover whatever it was that Harry and Ros decided they needed to know. She had seen first-hand the risks they asked assets to take, and she knew it got them in hospital sometimes, and in rare cases it even got them killed when their cover was blown. And they could not honestly expect that of him.

In her mind there wasn’t even room for any other idea other than the one that he must not have known what he had gotten into and didn’t mean for any of this to happen. They must have tricked him. She knew him; he wouldn’t want for the Muggle world to be dominated by wizards. No, if he had gotten into this of his own volition – and it would be hard to claim the opposite, what with the eyewitness account – then he must have been tricked. It was as simple as that.

She was saved from having to acknowledge just how unprofessional her train of thought was by Ros and Tariq. They had been standing over by his work station, looking at a computer, but now they had both moved. Tariq was wearing an expression that told Amy that something had just gone pear-shaped as he made for the meeting room, while Ros’s glare could have triggered an earthquake if looks had that power.

‘Meeting room! _Now_!’ she snapped to the Grid at large.

Amy hastily grabbed her files and most important articles, the ones she would need for the briefing anyway, and obeyed the barked command. Not that she thought she would need to deliver information; it was whatever Ros and Tariq had seen that had prompted this unscheduled meeting. And unscheduled meetings had never been for positive developments, neither here nor in the Auror Department. And Amy would hate to think what could have positively made her Section Chief look like that.

‘Sit,’ Ros snapped. She entered the meeting room last and remained standing while the rest of the team hastened to obey. ‘Tariq?’

It was in moments like this that she missed Harry. Amy had never gotten along well with Ros Myers. She was too snappy, too unsociable and just generally unlikeable. Why Harry and Lucas even put up with her was the big unsolved mystery in her opinion, but evidently they got along. Ros often got invited over for talk and a drink in Harry’s office and Lucas could be found perching on her desk, chatting, at least twice a day when there wasn’t an immediate crisis and neither of them was undercover. Occasionally even Julius seemed to like being around her. Well, shared experiences and all that. He was welcome to socialise with her as long as Amy wasn’t required to join in.

Tariq nodded and then pointed a remote at the screen. ‘This video appeared on YouTube about three hours ago. We pulled it as soon as we found it, but a _lot_ of people have seen it.’

Amy narrowed her eyes at the screen. The picture was blurry and unfocused at first, but then it cleared and she saw a man’s torso.

‘Right, go ahead,’ someone said, probably the one holding the camera.

The man – hang on, was he dressed in robes instead of normal Muggle clothes? – stretched out his hand and laid a bronze coin in it. And Amy recognised that coin. That was no Muggle money, that was a Knut. Suddenly she had a very good idea of just what was happening here. Wasn’t that what Lucas had said just yesterday? _Little videos of magic are online faster than you can say “tweet” these days_. It seemed his words had prophetic value.

‘Pay attention,’ the man said. The quality of the camera left a lot to be desired and the voices of the people in it were tinny and difficult to recognise, but Amy was sure she had heard this voice somewhere before. And she saw Jo perking up as well, frown in her forehead as she too tried to recall why it sounded so familiar. Amy felt that she herself was a lot closer to an answer, though.

The tip of a wand came into view as the wizard – no doubt about that anymore – tapped the coin and spoke the incantation. Amy had been good at Charms and Transfiguration at Hogwarts, had gotten O’s in both subjects on her NEWT exams, so she recognised the spell, a rather complicated, but textbook transfiguration spell intended to turn an object into a small animal. The school assignment had been to turn a quill into a mouse, and this spell was slightly modified, most likely because this coin wasn’t meant to be turned into a mouse.

The rest of the team only realised what the charm did when the coin was already in the process of growing fur and a head with long ears. It wasn’t something she hadn’t seen before – Merlin knew she had performed this spell herself successfully a couple of times – but she had never seen the process on film before. There was no one who could fake this. Well, the movie business probably could, given enough money and time, but no one who had such a low quality camera could. This was genuine and it had been online. The transfiguration of a coin into a rabbit had been online and there was just no telling how many people had seen this before it was pulled.

‘Well, that was a bit rubbish,’ the wizard remarked, sounding distinctly displeased. ‘I was going for grey.’

He was going for trouble, that was what he was. And the problem was that he seemed to be succeeding. This sounded like Source of Light’s dream come true. Never mind displays of magic in public. Those could be contained. It may be something of a job, but it was doable. But tracking down every single Muggle in Britain who had seen this video? That would be downright impossible. And that was without taken into consideration the Muggles not living in Britain who may have seen it. _Long live the world wide web._

‘Rubbish?’ the other guy exclaimed incredulously. ‘That… that’s _magic_!’ It was. It was real, proper magic, not the cheap tricks of Muggle conjurers that was supposed to pass as magic. And maybe it was because she herself was a witch, but she couldn’t see how anyone could come to another conclusion. ‘How’d you do that?’

‘Like I said,’ the other guy said. ‘Here, you can keep it.’

The camera angle shifted when the rabbit was dropped into the cameraman’s hands. It shook and the picture became out of focus again, but for just a split second they caught a glimpse of the wizard’s face before the phone was shoved into some pocket or other and they lost the visual. But it had been enough. Amy had seen a flash of unruly brown hair and a face that was almost too familiar. Judging by Ros’s frown and Jo and Ruth’s apparent shock, they too had recognised him.

‘But… it’s a rabbit,’ a muffled voice said, making Amy realise that they may not have the visual anymore, but it was not the end of the video. The Muggle must have forgotten to turn it off in his haste when he was handed the animal.

‘Yes, it is,’ the wizard said. He sounded amused. Well, he would. This was what he intended to happen. In fact, this unknown Muggle may have helped Source of Light’s cause along better than any of those articles in the _Daily Prophet_. This, this was a breach of the Statute of Secrecy the scale of which had definitely not been seen before. ‘Keep it. My mum’ll go ballistic if I bring home one more animal. My father’s having a period when he’s trying to transform all kinds of objects into animals. She really wasn’t pleased when he caused an infestation of mice three months ago, although, come to think of it, that was nothing compared to the scene she made when he transformed the dining table into a cow three weeks later. Oh, and I should have been at a meeting fifteen minutes ago. Sorry, I’ve got to dash. Nice meeting you. Enjoy the rabbit.’

The video ended there, leaving most of the team staring at the now empty screen in various states of shock. Even if Harry could get the full assistance of the Ministry of Magic, how were they ever going to cover this up?

‘Do we know who filmed this?’ Julius ventured, the first to speak. He pointedly avoided looking at her, leading Amy to believe that he too had recognised the offending wizard on sight and was equally unwilling to acknowledge it. And so he went for the identity of the Muggle first.

‘Peter Smith, twenty years old, student here in London,’ Ros replied briskly. ‘Given his reaction on the video it’s unlikely that he has anything to do with Source of Light.’

‘Unless it was set in scene,’ Ruth pointed out. ‘Source of Light could be making a serious and deliberate attempt to overthrow the Statute here.’

‘They are doing that anyway,’ Lucas said. ‘This guy may just be the unknowing accomplice. And this wizard fits the description given by a walk-in earlier today.’

Amy bit her lip. She had been hoping he wouldn’t bring that up, but she supposed it had been inevitable. As much as she didn’t want him to be involved, he seemed to be making rather a lot of effort to prove that he actually was very much involved in all this Source of Light business. And if she was going to keep that information from her colleagues for much longer, there may be consequences. Besides, she’d told Lucas, so he might spill the beans for her.

He had already launched into a summary of what had passed downstairs, what Mrs Small had told them about the encounter she had with a wizard who had repaired a tear in her coat and had cheerfully informed her that he was doing magic before disappearing in the crowd again. He asked Tariq to get a still of the short moment they had of the wizard’s face when he detailed the physical description.

Tariq didn’t need to be told twice. His fingers flew over the keys. It took him less than a minute to get the picture and make it appear on screen. He really was good at his job, even if she could have done without the techno-babble that often accompanied him.

And that was when all Amy’s hopes were crushed into the ground. Before now she may have been hoping that she was wrong after all, that it was just someone who looked very much like it, that it had all been coincidences. The birthmark, the hair, the eyes, the voice. That fiction had become impossible to maintain now that she found herself looking at the picture. It was blurry and really could have been used in a game of _Count the Pixels_ , as Tariq called it when a picture was so bad that they could get almost nowhere with it. Even though it was remarkably bad quality, Amy _knew_. And so did everyone else, except for Lucas and Tariq.

‘But…’ Jo seemed to have a very hard time coming to terms with what she saw. ‘That’s…’

She was stopped from finishing that sentence by Harry’s arrival, who was giving a remarkable impression of a bull who’d had a red flag waved in his face. He only spared one glance for the picture on the screen, leading Amy to believe that he had in fact already seen the video and was far from pleased with it, and then took his usual seat at the head of the table, not even stopping to take off his coat.

‘What do we have?’ he asked, skipping the niceties in favour of getting down to business right away. All things considered that may be better.

Amy knew she was being unprofessional and she really needed to get a grip on herself before things got out of hand. Neither Ros nor Harry thought that sentiment had any business in this building and they were right. It shouldn’t have a place here. She couldn’t go around protecting him, no matter how much she may want to. Fact remained that this was a crisis and he was the instigator. He was the reason they were having this meeting here in the first place anyway. He may well be the reason that the Statute of Secrecy was blown right out of the water worldwide, not just in Britain.

Still, she kept her silence while Ros filled Harry in on the details he hadn’t been told yet, confirming her theory that she had in fact called him over the moment they found that video.

‘We’ll let the Ministry deal with Obliviating whoever may have seen that,’ the Section Head decided, stabbing his finger at the picture in disdain. ‘We focus on Source of Light.’ His tone of voice suggested that was something he didn’t trust the Ministry with, and given the names Amy had come across, he may be very right not to. ‘Julius, when were you going to see your father?’

Julius managed to present him with a neutral expression. ‘In about three hours. He’s in town for business. He’s agreed to meet me for dinner.’

And even that had taken ridiculous amounts of cajoling and almost begging. Julius had been in the living room when he’d made the Floo call – no phones, purebloods definitely didn’t use Muggle devices for communication, never mind if they were more practical – and she had not been meant to overhear any of it, but she had become a spy for a reason and there were Extendable Ears in the kitchen drawers anyway. And she really did feel sorry for him. This was very emotionally taxing for Julius and she didn’t think Harry grasped just how much so. Julius tried to hide it himself, even from her. She’d tried to bring it up last night as they went to bed, but Julius had turned his back towards her and pretended to be asleep, even though she knew full well that he was wide awake, and had been for most of the night. And she couldn’t pretend that hadn’t hurt. It had almost felt like it had before Operation Wandless, when she wasn’t worth his time talking to.

Fortunately Harry was not giving her long to dwell on that. He listed instructions for Julius to collect some of Tariq’s bugs to record the conversation and take Lucas and Tariq with him on observation, before he turned to her. ‘And I need to talk to your friend,’ he announced. ‘Lorcan Rowle.’

She nodded, quickly forcing the unwanted emotions back in their box. ‘I was going to meet him tomorrow morning at ten for coffee,’ she said. ‘But I can change the location of the meeting to Thames House if you want.’

‘Tell him to make sure he isn’t followed.’

Amy decided to take that as a yes.

‘But that guy,’ Jo interrupted, eyes still fixed on the screen. She hadn’t torn her gaze away from it for even as much as a second, as far as Amy knew. ‘That’s Robert. He can’t be there. He’s dead.’

Amy thought she managed not to flinch when she heard his name. She had long since stopped mourning over him, she’d moved on with her life, but that didn’t mean that seeing that face on screen hadn’t felt like a punch to the gut. It wasn’t Robert, she knew that, but with that picture quality she could hardly blame Jo for being fooled into believing that he was. He looked so much like Robert it was almost painful.

And she could not honestly keep quiet for any longer and so she shook her head. ‘It’s not Robert,’ she contradicted. ‘No magic on earth can bring the dead back to life.’ _No matter how much we may wish for it sometimes._

‘If that isn’t him, he does look like him an awful lot,’ Jo pointed out.

That was undeniable. ‘He would,’ she said. ‘That’s his younger brother Tony. Anthony Steven West.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Julius meets his father.  
> Please review?


	8. Lucas North II

Lucas hated observation vans. He hated them for a number of reasons. They were cramped and dark and reminded him way too much of his tiny cell in Russia at times. Of course cells lacked the ridiculous amount of technological equipment, a nervous wizard holding a vial of potion that looked like mud and one techie who was way too enthusiastic about getting the chance to give his magic-resistant equipment a proper test. He’d been champing at the bit to give it a try for weeks, but the only terrorists that had come their way had been of the strictly non-magical kind the past few weeks.

And Marcus Burke was not even a real terrorist, technically speaking, since he hadn’t actually done anything, not that they knew of anyway. That was what they were here to find out in the first place. But honestly, Lucas didn’t think Burke senior would be their way in. Personally he was far more concerned with stopping the foot soldier, Anthony West, Amy and Julius both seemed to know. They didn’t even know for sure that Marcus Burke had anything to do with this plot. All they had was an informer’s word. But they needed to be sure, so here they were.

‘Ready?’ Lucas asked.

Julius wrinkled his nose at the potion. ‘We should recruit more wizards for Section D,’ he commented. ‘I’m too easily recognisable.’

That was true. Lucas hadn’t been around three years ago when Operation Wandless had taken place, but he’d heard the stories. And he had made it his job to read up on a couple of cases, and the _Daily Prophet_ had wasted a good few pages on the story, names, pictures, everything.

But that wasn’t all the reason that Julius was now about to swallow a dose of Polyjuice Potion. This was the restaurant where he would meet his father for dinner in a few hours, and he couldn’t go in there twice without people asking questions. And they needed at least one wizard in with Lucas to get the surveillance equipment to work, someone who could put it in place magically. So Julius would disguise himself as one of the Section D desk officers, a friendly man called Robin Anderson, who had offered the use of his hair for the potion.

‘Doesn’t look too bad,’ Lucas observed when Julius added the hairs and the potion turned a pleasant sea blue.

‘Tastes like goblin piss,’ Julius replied, clearly mentally bracing himself for the process of actually drinking the stuff.

‘How’d you know?’ Tariq asked interestedly. Until now he had been too preoccupied with his magic-resistant bugs to pay much attention to the other two, but now they had his attention.

Julius grimaced. ‘I’ve drunk this potion before,’ he answered. ‘In the Auror department, when I had to go undercover for an assignment.’

‘Yes, but how do you know it tasted like goblin piss?’ Tariq insisted.

‘I drunk it once,’ the wizard admitted reluctantly. ‘In school. On a dare during my sixth year. Got myself in the Hospital Wing for it, but I got ten galleons, so it wasn’t a total waste of my time. Not sure if it was worth the lecture I got from my Head of House, though. He really wasn’t happy with me.’

‘Can’t figure why,’ Lucas chuckled. ‘Come on, drink it. We have an appointment to keep.’

Julius nodded and then swallowed the potion down. Lucas had never seen the process of change before, but it was fascinating to watch, and a tad bit unsettling too. Robin was about the same height and same build as Julius himself, so there was not really a problem with the clothing, but the faces were quite different. And it was strange to suddenly see one of the desk officers in the van with them.

‘It’s disgusting,’ Julius declared. The voice was Robin’s, but the words were all Julius. ‘Come on, let’s go. I really don’t want to take a second dose.’

‘You’re good to go,’ Tariq agreed. ‘Keep the comms open.’

‘Will do,’ Lucas promised. He opened the doors and got out, almost tripping over the hem of the robes he was wearing. Since he too was posing as a wizard, he’d had to ditch the jeans in favour of wizarding robes. In his opinion wizards should win a prize for inventing the most uncomfortable and old-fashioned clothing on the planet. Ros had cheerfully commented that he looked like he was wearing a dress, and he had not been able to come up with one good witty retort. It _did_ look like a dress.

The sooner they’d dealt with this, the better it would be.

The restaurant where Julius would make the meet was a magical one, with delicacies from the magical world. Usually non-magical people – the word Muggle sounded highly offensive and degrading for some reason, and so he avoided using it if he could – couldn’t see it, but he was with Julius, so he could. _The Golden Phoenix_ the place was called, and it was one of the poshest restaurants Lucas had seen in his life.

‘Five star place?’ he inquired. ‘Or whatever the magical equivalent is.’

‘Close enough,’ Julius admitted. ‘Definitely one of the most expensive in Europe. But then, my father has more money than he could spend in five lifetimes. And he’s paying.’ He saw Lucas’s questioning glance. ‘Old money. Some ancestor of mine once made some very clever investments and it paid off.’

He sounded not very interested, and given the rumours that were going around that Julius was probably disinherited because of his career choice and marriage, it wasn’t difficult to think of why. Julius would never even see a penny of that wealth.

‘Might as well enjoy it,’ he said.

‘Yeah, might as well.’

Julius didn’t sound like he was about to, though. Lucas knew he’d told Harry he could handle it, that he wasn’t emotionally invested in this operation, but he had the distinct feeling that was not true. Both magical officers were too closely involved with this operation, and it didn’t sit right with Lucas. Of course he knew like no other how frustrating it could be to know that your colleagues didn’t trust you to do your job because of personal ties or past traumatic events, which was why he was prepared to give the two of them a chance. But he was also realistic enough to share Ros and Harry’s doubts.

They took deep breaths and entered the restaurant with friendly smiles on their faces, every inch the wizards from the Magical Maintenance company that was about to upgrade the restaurant’s “alarm systems” with the latest magical alarms. They could do alarms as well, of course, thanks to some of Amy’s spellwork, but the main purpose was the hidden and very non-magical surveillance technology meant to spy on Julius and his father.

‘Right on time!’ a cheerful voice greeted. The man that belonged to it didn’t seem to fit the interior. The restaurant itself was chic, there really was no other word for it, the kind of place that attracted people with stiff faces and expensive clothes, but the wizard that welcomed them was wearing clothes with fading colour, clearly old, and wore a wide smile on his face. ‘Eustace Smith, cook,’ he introduced himself. ‘Pleasure to meet you.’

Lucas’s smile became a bit less forced. ‘Likewise. James Whitby, and my colleague Robin Anderson.’ Julius could use the desk officer’s name. It was not as if anyone in the magical world had ever heard of him, and it wasn’t likely that they ever would. They might as well go with it.

‘The boss is out,’ Eustace informed them, almost too cheerfully. There was something familiar about his face, but Lucas couldn’t place it. ‘But I was asked to make sure you knew what needed to be done. About time too, I tell you. We’ve had some break-ins lately, but all these security spells are hopelessly outdated.’

‘Boss too much of a cheapskate to get the latest stuff installed?’ Lucas guessed as soon as Julius had gotten to work. He was good at this, making small talk with people in order to get information or to distract them. It was the latter in this case. Julius could go ahead and install the cameras while Lucas kept the cook entertained. That way Eustace would probably miss out on the Muggle elements and Lucas would not be forced to put his non-existent magical skills on display. Julius really was right; they could do with another magical officer on operations like this. Normally they might have borrowed an Auror for the time being, but Harry had declared the Auror Department compromised until further notice, and rightly so. So he would have to pretend he was a wizard for about half an hour. He was confident he could manage that. And in all the things that mattered, wizards weren’t that different from the non-magical population.

‘If ever you’ve seen one,’ Eustace confirmed. ‘Horrible guy. Pureblood, too, one of those that supported the wrong side in the war. No one ever quite found out if he actually _took_ the Mark, mind you, but I don’t think anyone’d be surprised if he had.’

It was only because Section D had been involved in the war that he knew what was going on, although their main task had been to smuggle people with a non-magical background and some political dissidents out of the country. The Ministry of Magic had only been informed of that when the war had ended and it was safe for the wizards and witches to come back home again.

‘Good thing he isn’t here, then,’ Lucas remarked. ‘I’ve got Muggle parents and he doesn’t sound the type who’d appreciate a Muggle-born in his establishment, I take it.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Eustace snorted. ‘I only got the job because his pureblood cook was a drunk and a lunatic. Half-blood,’ he clarified. ‘My father’s a Muggle. Either way, he’s forced to tolerate Muggle-borns when they come here, but you should see his face.’

‘Like my boss when he’s forced to deal with those rich bastards,’ Lucas said. He’d meant to say politicians, people Harry loathed with the devotion terrorists had for their causes. Of course that would have blown their cover right out of the water. ‘Your boss, doesn’t sound like the kind of man who’s cheering at the whole prospect of the Statute repeal.’

Eustace laughed. ‘You bet not. Mind you, not all that sure if it’s that good, all things considered, though it’d be nice not to have to lie to my Muggle relatives all the time.’ He gave Lucas a sympathetic look. ‘Certainly be nice for you, I’d imagine.’

‘My parents know, but yes, it’d be pleasant not to have to lie to the rest of the family all the time,’ he agreed. _You don’t know half of it_. ‘It’d be interesting to see Muggles and wizards cooperating,’ he added. ‘I’ve got a friend who can’t wait to go and combine Muggle equipment with spells.’ Not entirely a lie; Tariq had been ecstatic when he had talked Amy into experimenting.

‘I’d love to see that,’ Eustace said. ‘Speaking of which, some of that stuff your colleague uses, it looks a bit Muggle.’

 _Damn_. ‘Yes, it is, a bit,’ he admitted. ‘We’re just giving it a try, honestly. My friend made it, the one I mentioned. Some of the Muggle motion detection is worked into it, makes it harder for wizards to switch it off,’ he explained, making that up on the spot. He had no idea if it even worked like that. ‘Normal detection spells are too easily dodged these days.’

Eustace looked impressed. ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he said. ‘I’d know nothing about it. Does my boss know, though?’

‘We offered him a magical alarm system, which is what we’re delivering,’ Lucas pointed out.

‘He won’t hear anything else from me,’ Eustace promised. ‘Bloody brilliant if you ask me.’ He chuckled.

‘Good practise for when the Statute is abolished,’ Lucas said, bringing the topic back to the Statute. Not really what he was here to do – he was just a glorified diversion – but it couldn’t hurt to get the measure of the sentiment Source of Light was promoting. The newspapers made it look like a widespread movement, but the _Daily Prophet_ was infamous for being wrong and easily swayed to publish propaganda rather than the truth. ‘If it gets that far.’

‘Oh, I think it will. You hear people talking about it all the time these days.’ Eustace didn’t look very pleased with it. ‘Not that I’d want to remain separated from the Muggle world forever, but honestly, I think most of them would throw a fit if they found out we’re more than fairy-tales.’

Lucas laughed. ‘Or they’d just think the government was having them on. A lot of them are thinking that on a permanent basis already.’

‘Or that,’ the cook conceded. ‘Thing is, James – can I call you James? – I don’t think we’re ready either. The war is just a decade behind us, and we all know that Muggles were being killed for sport all over the place back then. Do you honestly think things have changed that much in ten years?’

Pureblood superiority. Lucas had heard about it from the frightened families he helped to smuggle out of Britain to safer places in Europe and America. And now that he thought about it, it seemed strange that things changed so rapidly from that to a widespread wish to get to know their non-magical brethren a whole lot better. Source of Light may have something to do with that, but not all of it. A lot of people supported this movement, and not all of them intent on overthrowing the government.

‘Can’t say,’ he shrugged. ‘Seems genuine enough for a lot of people.’

Eustace nodded. ‘Certainly. But I haven’t forgotten spending the better part of a year hiding out in Germany because the Ministry here was out for my blood. And it was the Muggle government who helped me to get out in the first place. Them Muggles, they aren’t half bad. Can’t blame them for being ignorant of us, can we? Might even be better for them to keep it that way, at least for a couple more years.’

Now he realised where he knew the cook from. He had a fleeting vision of a younger and skinnier version of Eustace in the service tunnels under London, waiting with an elderly couple for transport to the coast, where a ship would lie waiting to bring them to either France, Belgium or the Netherlands. Their Ministries of Magic had agreed to grant asylum to each and every wizard and witch persecuted by the new regime at the time.

‘We’ll see,’ Lucas said. Clearly Eustace had not recognised him at all. Not that strange, he reflected. They had only met briefly in what now, at least to Lucas, felt like another lifetime altogether. That had been before Russia, long ago. ‘Robin, how’s it going?’

‘Almost done,’ his colleague reported. He was even copying Robin’s attitude now. Almost done was his standard reply for when somebody wanted to know how far along he was with this or that assignment. ‘Give me another minute and this whole place will be covered. No thief is going to walk in here unnoticed, I promise.’

It would be an altogether more sensible idea to bring the money to the wizarding bank located not far from here, Lucas thought, but that would require something like common sense from wizards, and every now and then that seemed to be in rather short supply here. Not that he was complaining, because it had given them the perfect excuse to get in here.

‘Glad to hear it,’ he said. ‘Nice meeting you, Eustace.’

‘Pleasure was all mine,’ the cook said. ‘You know, James, I get this strange feeling we’ve met before, but my memory fails me.’

Lucas feigned ignorance. ‘I can’t say you look familiar to me.’ By now he was used to saying it in such an off-hand manner that people actually believed him. ‘Sorry.’

‘No matter,’ Eustace said, clearly not bothered at all. Either he was genuine or his acting skills rivalled those of an award winning actor. Lucas rather believed the former; there didn’t seem to be an ounce of guile about him. He could only hope that his memory wouldn’t make a spectacular return. But he’d best get out of here before anything worse happened. ‘How about the bill?’

‘We’ll settle it with your boss,’ Lucas replied. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

He really was glad to be out of that door and hopefully out of these robes as well within a couple of minutes. It really wouldn’t do to fall flat on his face because he had tripped over the hem.

‘What was that about?’ Julius asked. He was still looking like Robin; they couldn’t have been in there for more than twenty minutes tops, giving them plenty of time before the potion would wear off and he’d look like himself again.

‘He recognised me,’ Lucas admitted. ‘Didn’t know where from, but he knew my face.’

Now Julius was confused. ‘Where from?’

‘The war. Section D was in league with the Order of the Phoenix, getting everyone out of the country who was wanted by the new regime. Eustace was one of the refugees hiding in the service tunnels under London until he could get out. We hardly met for long, but it must have made an impression somehow.’ Well, he had spent most of those five minutes reassuring the man’s mother, and had apparently succeeded.

‘I heard about that,’ Julius muttered under his breath. ‘After Operation Wandless. Harry told me.’ He grimaced. ‘During the war… I was too young to really understand any of it for real, anyway, but people just disappeared. Strangely enough it were always those people that couldn’t meet with my father’s approval.’

Lucas frowned. ‘I thought you said your family had nothing to do with what happened there.’

And he didn’t like what Julius appeared to be implicating about his father’s actions during the Second Wizarding War. Betrayal always made him feel slightly nauseous. He had been on the receiving end of it, had been sold out to the Russians by someone he had actually trusted before it turned out she was a lying cow. And that was only imprisonment by the FSB. He’d heard what had been done to some of the people who had been taken by the Death Eater supported regime. Those stories were quite sufficient to put even the hell of Russia into perspective.

Julius snorted. ‘Officially, we hadn’t. None of my relatives were ever Death Eaters or publically supported Voldemort. But they sure as hell agreed with his views.’ Lucas could see hands clenching into fists. ‘And reports on someone’s blood status could be made anonymously. I’m not sure, not one hundred per cent, but I’m long since past thinking my father is a saint.’

He quickened his step, leaving Lucas behind to walk the rest of the distance on his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: dinner time.  
> Please review?


	9. Julius Burke II

_I’m long since past thinking my father is a saint_ , Julius had said to Lucas, and he meant it. Honestly, he had known that for a very long while. It was even something he had already been aware of before Operation Wandless. It was just that in general he avoided thinking about it, because it was just too painful. Even after the huge fallout his career change and marriage had caused, Julius just didn’t want to linger on it. It would force him to acknowledge that, no matter what he had told himself, his family’s part in the Second Wizarding War was not as innocent as he would have liked. He lacked proof, true, but that didn’t mean that his intuition wasn’t spot on. Otherwise it would be a hell of a coincidence that it were always those people his father didn’t like that disappeared.

And Julius Burke had been a spy for too long to still believe in coincidence. And he was no longer in the luxury position where he could conveniently ignore the family history. No, he may no longer think his father was a saint, but he didn’t want to consider him a criminal either.

It did make it ten times harder to walk into that restaurant. Last night he’d had to all but beg for his father to even agree to this meeting. Compared to what he had to do now, that seemed easy in comparison.

Marcus Burke was already there when Julius entered, and he himself was ten minutes early. His father always had liked to be early. It gave him the feeling of having the upper hand. And it made Julius feel like he was a school boy late for class.

‘Father,’ he greeted, forcing a pleasant smile onto his face. ‘It has been too long.’

The smile was not returned. ‘Julius.’ The greeting sounded curt. ‘I am assuming there is a reason why we are meeting tonight.’

No pleasantries here. Given the glacial relations for the past few years, he should not have been surprised. And he wasn’t. ‘There is,’ he agreed. ‘Shall we sit down and order something to drink?’

Personal involvement or not, he was here not merely as his father’s son, but first and foremost as an MI-5 officer. And he had been told he was a good field officer. No time like the present to show that. And he would have to take charge of this conversation right from the start if he wanted to get anywhere tonight.

‘They have a very good elvish wine,’ his father said. ‘From 1997. A very good year.’

The year Voldemort took over the Ministry of Magic. It wasn’t said, but Julius could read subtext very well these days.

‘Only in terms of wine-making, naturally,’ he countered lightly.

Why had he even agreed to this assignment? Well, because Harry would have taken him off the operation if he didn’t. This was a chance to prove himself, even if no one had said as much. It should have made him feel slightly better that he was not the only one tested, but it didn’t help a bit. Amy may have her own problems with Lorcan being turned into an asset in Source of Light, but Lorcan Rowle was hardly family. He was just a friend of sorts, and she hadn’t seen him in years. It couldn’t compare.

‘Naturally,’ his father echoed.

Fortunately a waiter chose that moment to appear and save them from themselves. Marcus – Julius took care to use the name in his head, so that he could create some emotional distance between them, or so he hoped – took it upon himself to make the order, taking great care to show off his fine pureblood manners and his knowledge of the magical world.

Julius wasn’t sure he could still pull it off, something the older wizard was well aware of. He’d been in the Muggle world too long, where blood status was not important, certainly not when the Russians were running amok and Al-Qaeda was planning something again. He didn’t sound or look like a respected member of a pureblood family anymore.  
But he sure wasn’t about to let his father pour contempt on his every action. And he wasn’t ashamed of who he had become.

‘Nice place, this restaurant,’ he commented casually.

‘You’ve lowered your standards,’ Marcus Burke said. ‘Muggles never quite manage to achieve that same level of quality.’

There it was, the expected disgust for anything Muggle. It made it so difficult to believe he was involved with a movement intent on overthrowing the Statute of Secrecy, well, until one considered the objective of aforementioned movement. As much as he had denied it, it sounded too much like something the man opposite him would get involved with.

‘You obviously have not visited many Muggle restaurants,’ Julius said, determined to defend the society he was now a part of. Of course, the wizarding world had a great many advantages over the Muggle one – old opinions, like old habits, died hard – but it wasn’t as bad as he had thought during his youth. ‘Maybe we should have agreed to meet there.’

His father side-stepped that. ‘Why am I here?’ he demanded rudely; no need for polite manners when there was no one else nearby to hear him. ‘I have no wish to spend a very long time talking to you, unless you came to beg for my forgiveness, which, I admit, is unlikely given your conduct thus far.’

Begging for forgiveness? No, he would not sink that low. True, there had been moments when he had been so badly tempted to run back and grovel over the last three years, but he’d always come to his senses before he could make good on those urges. It was natural to wish for one’s family’s approval, but not always realistic. And after Operation Wandless, Julius had known full well that there was no going back to the life he’d led before. At first he had been reluctant about his choice to join MI-5, especially when it was met so much resistance from his family. But this had been the right choice to make; he felt at home with Section D now.

‘I’ve passed the age where I required your permission and approval for my life’s choices,’ he said coldly. ‘However, I do not wish to have this childish quarrel lasting forever, especially in the light of recent developments.’

‘Which developments would that be?’ his father asked sceptically.

‘Amy is pregnant,’ Julius said.

It was not true, of course, but he had needed a valid reason for inviting his father to dinner, and this sounded like as good a reason to try and “mend fences” as any. And when there turned out to be no child at all, it was easy to chalk it up to a miscarriage. St Mungo’s would not have the documents proving it, but why would Amy and he still go there when they essentially lived in the Muggle world? And it was easy enough to ask Ruth to falsify some Muggle paperwork should the need arise. Easy enough.

The announcement was met by silence.

‘That’s why I asked to meet,’ Julius went on, pretending not to notice the disapproving stare that was directed at his person. ‘This has gone on for much too long. You do not have to approve of my choices, I do not approve of yours, but it seems unfair to keep you from your only grandchild.’

He liked that speech; it made it sound like he had a valid reason to be here. And it was what people did, wasn’t it? Well, it was what most people did. Julius wasn’t sure he would ever do it if he even became a father. To be honest, he’d probably take care to keep any child of his far away from Marcus Burke. But since he was unlikely to ever have children, that was a useless thought anyway.

It wasn’t that they couldn’t have children, it was more that they had decided between them that there were too many risks. They’d seen it with Adam and his little boy, Wes. The child’s mother, Fiona, had died before Amy and Julius had joined Section D, and when Adam had died about a year ago, he’d left his son an orphan. There were too many risks involved in the line of work they were in, and Julius did not want to do that to a child.

The reaction wasn’t what he hoped it to be. ‘You have fallen low.’

Julius understood what he meant. ‘According to you I fell low the moment I got involved with Muggles and married a Muggle-born.’ He tried to sound as if he could not care less, but he did care, and he’d be a fool to deny it. Rejection from one’s own father simply hurt, and it wasn’t something one could get used to either.

‘Your marriage to the Mudblood was one of the least bad things you have done,’ came the reply.

And in spite of his intention not to lose his temper, he forgot about it and charged in like a bull that had seen a red flag. ‘Don’t use that word!’ he snapped. ‘Don’t you _dare_ use that word.’

In days gone by, when he had been young and extremely ignorant, he had used it himself on more than one occasion; it had been his standard way of referring to wizards and witches of Muggle descent. That had changed when the Death Eaters had made him read that repulsive text with the word, and it were a group of Muggles, a Muggle-born witch and a half-blood wizard who had moved heaven and earth to get him out. He had been wrong to use that word then, and his father was wrong to use it now.

‘I am not afraid to call things by their proper name.’ Marcus Burke was wholly unremorseful and unimpressed by Julius’s outburst. ‘You used to do the same thing, as I recall.’

Julius laughed humourlessly. ‘Before I fell so very low and polluted the Burke bloodline with Muggle blood.’

Amy’s parents had been rather welcoming. They were very ignorant of the wizarding world – Amy admitted she had told them as little as possible on purpose, to protect them – and consequently had just been pleased for their daughter when she had brought Julius with her to meet them. In private Terence, her dad, had told Julius that he was glad his girl had gotten over that teenage crush she’d had on a guy called Robert. Julius hadn’t told him what had happened to trigger that change; he’d agreed with Amy that her parents were better off not knowing the dangers that made up their lives these days.

Of course, the whole plan could collapse if this scheme to repeal the Statue of Secrecy was successful. And the plan to keep them away from the danger would be null and void if it went the way Source of Light had in mind.

That reminded of him why he was here in the first place. Well, technically he didn’t think he could get his father to confess his involvement with that terrorist organisation, but that was not his main purpose. As soon as Harry had learned that both Julius’s parents would be out of the house – his mother had some charity event to attend, which was why she wasn’t here – he had ordered Ros and Amy to go down there and install some of Tariq’s magic-proof bugs. No doubt a lot more could be learned from that.

‘You know that a lot more of this mixing of bloodlines will happen when the Statue will be abolished,’ he remarked. ‘Truth be told, I think pure-blood is a term that’d have to be abandoned within the next hundred years.’

This was something he could do. He may disagree passionately with what Source of Light was doing, but he was still all for repealing the Statute. They were no longer living in the Dark Ages, for Merlin’s sake. The days when witches were burnt at the stake were long behind them. They should be far enough advanced that the wizarding world could come out of hiding.

‘That will never happen,’ his father said dismissively.

‘Are you sure?’ Julius put down his glass and leaned forward. ‘I’ve never seen such widespread support in the wizarding society since the collective disgusted reactions after the mess the English team made at the last Quidditch World Cup.’

‘Even then, the Ministry would need international approval,’ Marcus said. ‘Which it is never going to get. Too many countries are opposed to the idea. You never were a useless dreamer, Julius. Be realistic. And what makes you think the Muggles would be more tolerant than they were in the seventeenth century? That lot never got out of the Dark Ages, not mentally. Narrow-minded, judgemental, ignorant and superstitious. Those are the words you’re looking for.’

 _Reminding you of someone, perhaps?_ ‘I am working with the Muggle secret service,’ he pointed out. ‘Not all that superstitious. Neither are the Muggles I meet in my line of work. Maybe you should take some time to meet the people you ridicule.’

‘Like you have?’ The contempt was too obvious to miss.

The meals had been served, but eating was one of the last things on Julius’s mind right now. He knew he was nothing near professional now, but he was himself, and his father would know he was up to something otherwise. The anger was taking over anyway. Operation Wandless had made Julius learn his lesson, and while his world had tilted on its axis, the same wasn’t necessarily true for the majority of the wizarding society.

‘You sound like a Death Eater.’ The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. They shocked him, too. But they were true all the same. He’d had enough close experience with Death Eaters to know that his father’s sentiments were theirs too.

He didn’t remember much in detail from his time in that cursed warehouse; it was a blur of unrelated moments, pain, glimpses, pain, pain, pain. His every nerve on fire, his body out of his own control, burning panic. But those few moments he remembered, usually when in the clutches of one of the nightmares, had been filled with insults concerning the “scum” Julius worked with. His father sounded exactly like Simmons and Dolohov.

‘I never worked with them,’ Marcus said. He was rather heavy on the defence, Julius noted.

‘No, you just reported people to them,’ Julius countered. The resentment was getting wildly out of control, but that didn’t make his accusation any less true. ‘Or didn’t you think I’d remember that it were always those people you disliked that got a midnight visit from Voldemort’s faithful followers? I’m surprised they haven’t given you an Order of Merlin for helping them fill the cells of Azkaban. And its graveyard.’

When asked, he would find it difficult to identify the exact moment when his father’s opinion about him ceased to matter. He rather suspected it had been when the M-word had been mentioned. On the other hand, when the well-known insults about Muggles had made an appearance, he had lost patience. And the scathing remark about bloodlines had not warmed Julius to his father either.

‘You sound like a child,’ came the dismissive answer.

‘Careful, Julius,’ came Lucas’s voice in his ear. ‘We might need him later. You can’t alienate him too much.’

It was a help. He’d told Harry he’d be able to handle this, and he didn’t feel like disproving that here. With some shock he realised that he cared more about his boss’s opinion than he did about his father’s. yesterday he’d thought he might be too vulnerable for this, even though he would never admit to that, but now he was in immediate danger of loathing that man on the other side of the table. But in a way this development was a blessing; it made the operation easier.

He snorted. ‘Either way, it doesn’t matter what we think. People already have taken matters into their own hands. I hear your Auror Department already has quite a lot of trouble containing sightings of magic all over the UK. It wouldn’t surprise me if my boss makes us all work overtime soon.’

Last he heard the Ministry had begun the mother of all cover-up operations to deal with that little video that had gone online yesterday. Julius privately thought it was useless. By the time Tariq had discovered it, several other people had already copied it and put it online. And because some smart people had figured out that the videos were taken down, they were getting rather creative. By now it was everywhere on the internet if you knew where to look. It was unstoppable, and secretly he was pleased with that. It was probably best to keep that opinion to himself for the moment, though.

And he had more important matters to concern himself with. He didn’t think he had imagined that flash of alarm on Marcus Burke’s face. He hadn’t known that MI-5 was already aware of what was going on. And by the look of things, he didn’t like it.

‘If that is true, I do not think a Muggle organisation can do anything useful,’ he said. It sounded more hopeful than dismissive now, though.

He’d caught him by surprise, and as a member of the pure-blood rich, he’d never had the need to learn how to control his reactions, not in this way anyway. Merlin knew that the expression the Muggles called poker face was a pure-blood wizard invention otherwise. He knew about the operation, Julius was sure. Why else would he have been as alarmed? He knew about it. Lorcan had been right.

But he was not as disappointed as he would have been yesterday. ‘You’d be surprised,’ Julius smirked. ‘Can’t tell you anything; it’s all classified, but we wizards should be careful not to underestimate Muggles.’

And his father could take that hint. Julius had heard that Ros had shot Dolohov without blinking, knew that Harry Pearce had successfully manipulated the Ministry of Magic, that Lucas had smuggled refugees out of the country during the Second Wizarding War, that Ruth could get into every document in existence, magical or not, that Tariq could invent listening devices that were magic-proof. He had been so wrong to underestimate Muggles when he first joined MI-5.

Marcus rose from his chair. ‘I had hoped you had come to your senses, boy,’ he said. ‘But I was mistaken. Stop wasting my time.’

‘I had hoped you’d gotten over your prejudices by now.’ Never mind that it had taken one brave young Gryffindor dying for him to see the stupidity of them. ‘Clearly I was mistaken.’

As his father walked out, Julius sat back down. He might as well finish his meal.


	10. Lorcan Rowle

Lorcan didn’t know what to expect of the Muggle Spy Headquarters. Why would he; it was not as if he had ever any intention to step foot in it. But Amy’s message had instructed him to come here instead of the café where they were supposed to meet. Something must have changed then. He couldn’t say what; ever since they met he had laid low. Under the given circumstances that was probably the best thing he could do.

But today he had to get out of bed and face the consequences of his actions. And he felt like such a fool. In hindsight he could see that it had all been too good to be true, but yes, the promises he had been given were so tempting. He had wanted them to be true and in doing so, had gotten himself a whole lot deeper involved than he should have.

Dressing up as a Muggle had been a trial. If the Statute was ever really overthrown, it wouldn’t matter how he dressed – Muggles might even adopt wizarding fashion sense for all he knew – but for now he would have to keep to their clothing in order not to stand out. Still, as he stepped out of his front door, he had a feeling he had been failing miserably. Most Muggles looked decidedly different and they were giving him odd looks to convey the message that they thought he was a rather strange fellow. So far, he wasn’t off to a good start.

And now that he was really on his way, the nerves made another spectacular appearance. What did he even think he was doing? Of course, he had asked himself that question ever since he had realised just what he had agreed to. Source of Light had been only too eager to recruit him. He was a pureblood wizard who could boast Death Eaters in his family. Not that Lorcan was feeling like boasting of them – omitting all mention of the offending names in fact – what with all the harm they had done the family. He couldn’t even get a proper job. He had qualifications aplenty; he had been a Ravenclaw for a reason. No, that was not the problem. His uncle and cousin were. The former was still in Azkaban, while the former was dead in his grave ever since the Battle of Hogwarts. Lorcan of course had been too young at the time to have anything to do with Death Eaters, but Marcus Burke must have looked at his family history and his frustration with the system that insisted on distrusting him and therefore have concluded that Lorcan was easy fish to fry. Which he had been. He’d been a fool as well.

And so here he was at last, standing in front of Thames House, where he didn’t want to be. Amy had warned him that warning her wasn’t enough, that they’d want more of him. Despite his hopes to the contrary, this wasn’t much of a surprise and if he was really honest with himself, he knew that he would have to set this right somehow. He just very much didn’t want to. He only wanted out. Even his mundane and unrewarding job would be better than getting involved with spies and secret organisations.

Dawdling in front of the place wouldn’t do him any good, though, and so he told himself to get a move on and step over that threshold. Amy had warned him to make sure he was not followed. That spoke for itself. Source of Light would not like to learn he had buttered up to MI-5. It was one of his better decisions to involve the Muggles. They at least were very unlikely to have been infiltrated. And Merlin knew what his erstwhile friends would do if they discovered they were not as secret as they had meant to be. He could only guess at what they would do to him.

‘You’re late.’ The snappy voice rendered the need to go and look for someone who could direct him to where he needed to go null and void. He knew that voice, too. Three years ago it had made quite an impression on him when it had threatened to have him thrown in jail for failing to cooperate.

‘Miss Myers,’ he acknowledged.

He recalled the woman the voice belonged to well enough too. Blonde-haired, determined and perpetually ill-tempered she was. Or at least she had been then. But her greeting – or rather lack thereof – now led him to believe she hadn’t changed much.

‘Follow me,’ she said, commanded, and there was little choice but to do as she bid. It was not as if he could back out at this point. Or maybe he could, but he would have to move abroad and lie low for the rest of his life while Source of Light, the Ministry and MI5 were all out for his head. The prospect became more tempting with every passing second.

‘Where is Amy?’ he asked. Since she had been the one to deliver the message and she had been the one he had contacted, he had assumed she would be the one to keep open the lines of communication between them. He may not want the Muggles enslaved and hunted, but he wasn’t champing at the bit to take orders from them either. They may have some redeeming qualities, but he wasn’t charmed by their society so far and he wasn’t likely to be anytime soon. They were so backwards in so many aspects and the things they invented to try and live without magic were nothing short of ludicrous. And he could not escape the notion that Muggles were less than friendly in general.

Miss Myers’s reply was as curt as her other verbal communication. ‘Not here. You’ll have to make do with me, I’m afraid.’

‘I had assumed…’ he began. Would this woman even be able to grasp what he was about to tell her? She knew next to nothing about wizards and their customs. It took a fellow wizard or witch to really understand.

‘You had assumed wrong,’ the Muggle woman interjected.

‘Is Julius available then?’ he tried. He had never really been friends with him, but he could tolerate him for the sake of the elusive greater good. That, however, became increasingly harder to keep sight of under the given circumstances.

It was a whole different world, he reflected. Muggles were almost a people onto themselves, separated from wizards by customs, dress, moral values… _everything_. Their buildings looked different as well, especially on the inside. He dared to bet a year salary that he wouldn’t find a single quill or candle in the entire building. And no wizard in his senses would consider adopting any of the Muggle technology he saw around him. True, there were no more witch hunts in this day and age, at least not in this country, but he started to doubt if these two societies were quite ready to blend together. The Muggles could never hope to aspire to wizard standards and most wizards would never wish to adopt to Muggle standards. Confronted with the truth of this, it suddenly seemed like a foolish notion to abolish the Statute. What were they thinking? This could only ever end in disaster.

The this he was thinking of could also refer to his dealings with the snappy Myers woman, though. She had hardly made a secret of her dislike of him and since they were meeting on her terms, he would have to tread very carefully. He did not know a lot about Muggles, but he was fairly certain that as soon as his willingness to cooperate with them ended, his freedom ended as well. He had gotten involved with an illegal organisation, which was likely to buy him several years of Azkaban. And Lorcan Rowle had no intention of going to prison.

It appeared like he was already in one, though. The Myers Muggle – a term which seemed to suit her – led him to a room without windows, with only the one door. There was a table in it with two chairs, one on either side.

‘Sit,’ she invited. To Lorcan’s ears it sounded more like a command. She poured coffee for both of them and pushed it at him as he took his place. ‘Coffee?’ That too was more of an order than a kind offer, though.

Had Amy known what she had subjected him to before she went off to do whatever it was that she did? He didn’t think it likely. They had liked each other in school, even though contact had been limited since then. They’d gone their separate ways. Amy had risen high, had made something of her life, whereas he had gotten stuck in a tedious security job in the Ministry and had completely mucked everything up when he fell for Burke’s false promises. That was how he had ended up here, in this Muggle building where he didn’t want to be. At the very least he had been allowed to keep his wand; he could Apparate out of here whenever he wanted. It was a small comfort, but a comfort all the same.

While he had been contemplating all of this, his interrogator had set herself up with pen and paper. ‘You are Lorcan Lucius Rowle?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘I am.’

‘Born on the ninth of October 1985?’ she continued.

Lorcan confirmed that as well. There were other questions that hardly took any effort to answer. His address, his occupation, that kind of thing. He had expected such formalities. The Ministry was overly fond of such things as well.

Miss Myers made a note of them and nodded at him in what could with some imagination pass for encouragement. ‘Can you tell me how you first came into contact with Source of Light?’ There was some sympathy in her voice, but he had to look hard for it. He had the feeling that she had no sympathy at all for someone who had made a mistake as he had. She only thought him stupid. The kindness was just pretence, and bad pretence at that.

 _This is a mistake_ , he thought. _It won’t work. Not with a Muggle._

But since backing out had ceased to be an option from the moment he had informed Amy about Source of Light, he stayed in his chair and began his story, starting from the moment John Woods had first approached him. His interrogator didn’t say much. She only made notes and every now and then asked him to elaborate on what a certain person looked like, what was said and what he was meant to do. She was thorough and wanted every detail she could squeeze from him and he had to think so hard that it took him a while to realise that she had not asked him to explain something about the wizarding world even once, suggesting that she was familiar with it, at least enough to not need additional explanations. Whatever he had previously thought about her, it seemed he had severely underestimated her. There was a persistent rumour in the Ministry that one of the Muggles had shot Dolohov. Lorcan had always dismissed that rumour as poppycock, because Muggles could hardly even make sense of their world, never mind beat a wizard in a fight. Now, however, he wondered. She knew a lot, that was for sure.

‘And what were your orders?’ the Myers Muggle asked eventually, after she had persuaded him to yield every last bit of information he had.

‘None, yet,’ he admitted. ‘There is a meeting I’ll need to attend tomorrow, that’s all I have been told.’

‘Then you will go as scheduled,’ she said.

He looked at her in confusion. ‘You want me to spy for you?’ That was more than he had anticipated. He had expected interrogations, had anticipated that Amy’s new friends would want to know what he knew. He had _not_ expected to be sent back in as their creature. He was a wizard, not a marionette that he would dance to their tune!

The woman gave him a sarcastic smile in response. ‘No, I want you to go and give them a salsa lesson.’

Lorcan didn’t dare ask what salsa was, not being familiar with that himself. It was sarcasm anyway, and decidedly not the main point. ‘You have _no_ right,’ he said heatedly, rising to his feet. Did she not know who they were dealing with? The inner circle of Source of Light were people with Death Eater sympathies. Some may have taken the Dark Mark in secret. Those were not the sort of wizards one messed with. He remembered seeing the little movie – that was what they called it, wasn’t it? – of Julius when he had been left to the tender mercies of Death Eaters. Merlin knew what they would do to one who betrayed them. Lorcan was not in the mood to find out for himself.

‘Of course your Ministry would only be too glad for the opportunity to catch a member of an illegal organisation. One anonymous tip is all it takes, I’ve heard.’ Ros Myers seemed wholly unmoved by his anger. ‘Sit down, Mr Rowle.’

He remained standing. Her threat was all that was stopping him from Apparating out of here, but he was no dog she could command at her pleasure. She was only a Muggle and while he did not wish the Muggle society enslaved, he looked down on it all the same. His fingers were itching to draw his wand and hex her, but that would be the quickest route to trouble.

‘I have told you all that I know,’ he insisted.

‘Which seems rather scanty, all things considered.’ She did not even look up at him when she spoke, her eyes fixed on her notes, as if he was a schoolboy called to the carpet to answer for mischief he had gotten in. And everything inside him balked at being taken to task by a Muggle in such a fashion.

‘I never did anything,’ he said. Well, truth be told, it was more like a growl. ‘It was all talk.’

‘We can easily make it look like it was more.’ Miss Myers’s stare was unsettling at best. ‘Let me make one thing very clear, Mr Rowle, we need a way in and you are our only option. One of our officers would be discovered the moment they were asked to demonstrate a simple summoning spell and our magical officers are too easily recognised. You may thank Miss Skeeter for a job well done. And even if they were to don some magical disguise, your friends would have ways of seeing through them.’

He scowled at her. ‘They are not my friends,’ he snapped.

‘Could have fooled me,’ she retorted. ‘Amy did tell you that we would have further need of you, didn’t she? What did you think she meant, we’d need you to sing us a pretty song and we’d let you off?’

Evidently he had been mistaken in that assumption. ‘No.’ Not the truth, but admitting to this insufferable Muggle that she was right about something was asking too much. He had his pride. It was only out of necessity that he had turned to the Muggles. No, he had turned to Amy, who happened to work for MI-5. He had never wanted anything to do with her colleagues and bosses.

‘Then stop complaining,’ the Myers Muggle said. The term seemed to suit her better with every passing second, mostly because it sounded so unpleasant, just like the woman herself. What had Julius and Amy ever seen in this job? It looked like the worst sort of punishment to him to have to come here day in day out and take orders from Muggles like this one. What wizard or witch in their senses would choose such a career? They must have been brainwashed.

Lorcan had to bite his tongue to prevent several scathing words from escaping. Some of them were decidedly hexes or curses of some kind. But what choice did he have? The way he saw it, he had run out of options. Unless he wanted to spend the rest of his days in hiding – which he didn’t – he would have to cooperate. And this woman knew that too. Otherwise she would have been more vigilant. But she knew he wouldn’t curse her because this building was filled with her colleagues who all knew about him and who would only be too happy to see him behind bars if he did something they did not care for. It had seemed such a good idea at the time to inform Amy and let her take care of all the rest. But that had been hope. Reality turned out to be far more unpleasant.

‘What do I need to do?’ he asked, which was as close to admitting defeat as he was likely to come. He could only hope this would be over as soon as possible. He might have to Obliviate himself to wipe this humiliating experience from his memory afterwards.

‘Our techie will give you some magic-resistant bugs,’ she told him. ‘You will make sure to film all the people that are present, record what’s being said, get close to anyone we tell you to.’ She sent him a sardonic smile. ‘You just have to make sure you’re not discovered.’

He had to double-check to make sure he had understood her right. He didn’t think so. ‘Why would I take bugs?’ Had these Muggles lost it completely?

‘Listening equipment and a camera too if Tariq can manage it,’ Miss Myers clarified. ‘Follow me.’

Lorcan would love to protest some more, but he had already made it clear that he was defeated. Any objection he made now would be futile, a waste of his time. And so he did as he was ordered, following the Muggle deeper into the building, through some doors that he would have called magical if found in the Ministry – because they opened when he passed without anyone doing the opening – but here only unnerved him. Then they were in a large room with lots of computers. He was glad he at least knew what they were. Some Ministry people were using them as well these days and one of them had showed him his in a talkative mood. The low humming the devices made reminded Lorcan of buzzing insects he would love to squash.

‘Today, if you please,’ Myers said when he was taking in the sight too long. If he were ever forced to describe her, impatience would be at the very top of his list, second only to generally unpleasant and unsociable. ‘Tariq!’

A young man in casual clothes so Muggle it was as if he meant to make a statement to all wizards trying and failing to look the part, swivelled round on his chair. ‘What have you got for me, Ros?’ He caught sight of Lorcan and the permanent smile widened into a grin. ‘Wizard surveillance?’ he asked eagerly.

Ros nodded. ‘Try not to overdo it.’ She turned to Lorcan and added: ‘If you don’t understand what he says, just nod and smile.’

With that she left him with the Muggle named Tariq and made her way to her own desk. He would have been grateful for this were it not that this Tariq looked like Christmas had come early. Here was one Muggle who would be eager to explore everything magical and that was just wrong. Muggles didn’t have the right to treat their culture as something that was to be ogled, stared at like one would at monkeys in a zoo.

‘Surveillance, right?’ the Muggle asked again, which made Lorcan wonder whether or not he was stupid, because he clearly recalled his superior just saying so. ‘Observation during a meeting?’

Lorcan nodded. ‘Yes.’ The reply was curt, bordering on rude, but he couldn’t care. He had to work with these people, but he didn’t have to cheer at the prospect. He had done a discreet sweep of the room just now, but neither Amy nor Julius were anywhere in sight. The only one he did vaguely recognise was a woman with brown hair that he thought had once come in to the Ministry with Amy. Miss Ever-something. He could not recall the rest of her name. And he had hardly had any contact with her at the time, so hoping for some sympathy from her side was probably too much to ask.

Tariq was rummaging through some cupboard and came back out with wizarding robes, seemingly just out of the shop. ‘Your new outfit,’ he announced. ‘Looks like it is just about your size.’

It was. Which begged a question. ‘Where did you get that?’ Muggles were not permitted into wizarding shops and Muggles did not dress like this.

The Muggle didn’t take offence; he was protected from Lorcan’s anger by a shield of ever-present cheerfulness. ‘Amy went shopping. Brand-new standard black wizarding robes. Except these got a few things you won’t find in your average wizarding clothing.’ He had the guts to grin and wink. ‘Look.’

Lorcan had to come closer to notice the listening devices – how could they be so small? – in the buttons. They were tiny.

‘And magic-proof,’ Tariq added, looking every bit the cat that got the canary. ‘Wand-waving will not affect them, which is really very useful. Normally electricity goes haywire near magic and all that stuff, but not these little beauties. We will be able to hear you loud and clear. And you will be able to hear us.’ He handed Lorcan another device. How he was supposed to tell one from the other, he’d never know; they were all small and of similar colour too. ‘That goes in your ear. Nobody will see unless they know what they are looking for. And they won’t know. Who would suspect Muggle technology during a meeting of wizards, eh?’

He sounded entirely too pleased with himself. He might even have some reason to, because no one would look for this. It vexed Lorcan enormously for some reason he could not identify. Still, there was no choice but to accept the robes, which he did without throwing in a thank you. He wouldn’t mean it anyway. As far as he was concerned, he was forced into this. He would bear it, but nothing more.

‘And that will record visual,’ Tariq said, dropping a ring into his hand. It looked old, very old, though Lorcan suspected it was not. It even bore his family crest. Doubtlessly there would be some other “bug” hidden inside, but that was not what set his blood to boiling. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ he demanded.

Tariq shrugged. ‘They are all very big on the old pure-blood thing there, aren’t they? You’ll fit right in with that.’

As a matter of fact, Lorcan did his level best to not be associated with the Rowle name and family history, but if he could not escape the spying thing, he might as well use it on the people to who it did mean something positive, regardless of how disgusting that may be. But he hated it that he was sliding deeper and deeper into this shady business. It seemed that how harder he fought, the deeper he was dragged down. Somehow he had lost control over his own life and it angered him as much as it frightened him.

‘I will,’ he admitted.

‘Well, then,’ Tariq said. ‘You’re good to go.’

If only he felt as ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. A review would be appreciated!


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